Saturday, February 18, 2006

yay it's a "break"

It's reading week. I have four assignments to complete and three exams to study for. YAY.. I'll be at school even when I don't have to be.

Thanks to my friend E, I have the basis for a workout routine. My plan: 3 days a week at the VVC gym, focusing on arm muscles plus squash and volleyball once a week each. I hope I will stick to this plan. I just need a work out buddy to do this w/ me after school...

School: 3 exams down, 3 to go.

CIV E 303 - Easy exam, except for a couple MC questions and the stupid bid cost question/table. No one understood how to fill the table in properly.
CIV E 372 - See last entry.
CIV E 321 - I ran out of time. I just put the correct equations down for the last part of the last question. :P

I'll be in SUB studying this week. I'll see some of you losers
there :(...

Listening to: RENT - Take Me or Leave Me

Posted by norwegian girl at 11:48 p.m.

Monday, February 13, 2006

jumping the table

I got my hair cut. I have.. bangs. I haven't had bangs since.. yea I don't even remember that far back. I'm still wearing it up in a pony though of course. It's been in abpony for at least 10 years and it's staying that way.

My women's volleyball team lost today.. :(. The season is now over unfortunately. We should have won.. but alas we did not. At least we lost to another Engineering team though. I hope they win.

School: So I had my CIV E 372 midterm today at 2pm. I sat down, got my notes all organized (half the exam is open book) and started the exam when prompted. Ten minutes into the exam, I knocked the most important section of my notes off the table.

In NREF, the tables are large and long. The tables are also tiered downwards toward the front of the class. The guy in front of me heard and saw my notes fall, yet didn't pick em up.. so I'm like.. great. After debating what to do, I jumped over
my table to the lower tier, grabbed my notes, and sat back on my table to swing around back into my seat. I almost fell off the table.. but I managed. I just knew something like this would happen.

The exam itself? All I have to say is my thanks go out to my shaker pencil for saving my the two seconds it would have taken to push the lead advancer button as this exam was intense. Also, thanks goes out to my bud, Jim. He (or rather, his sample midterms and assignment solutions) saved my butt. I owe you...

Listening to: The Fugees - Ready or Not

Posted by norwegian girl at 11:42 p.m.

Friday, February 03, 2006

01.03.06. update

So I haven't posted in a LONG TIME. I also have no time to make this site all nice like I promised earlier. (Sorry to all of my adoring fans..)

So update time:

1) School has started and I have the worst set of professors this semester. Here is a rundown of each one (I didn't name them):

CIV E 303 - PROJECT MANAGEMENT

- monotone
- turns the lights down low so it's like he's inviting you to fall asleep in his class
- asks, "Are there any questions?" and waits for 5 minutes in silence b/c no one has a question... he does this every 10 minutes
- class material is boring so I suppose it's not all his fault

CIV E 315 - TRANSPORTATION

- thinks very highly of himself (too highly in my opinion)
- his way of doing examples consists of him telling us to read the question from the handout and then doing the problem ourselves in class.. then, he asks the class what we got.. the one person that did the problem in class yells out and the prof says, "oh.. well I got this: ____" And then he writes his answer on the board and circles it... and that's it.. good example prof..
- accent is strong and he pronounces a lot of things wrong, thus making it hard to understand the material.. especially since he makes so many mistakes and doesn't like admitting to making mistakes
- he has a strange patch of hair on his forehead that sometimes waves back and forth due to the air conditioning in the room.. it's very distracting
- i hate this class more than anything in the world

CIV E 321 - ENVIRONMENTAL MODELING & RISK
- too passive: every class beings with "Excuse me.. it is now 5 past.. please say your last sentence now..."
- good at doing examples in class
- seems nice.. but not very responsive in person: i asked him a question about an assignment once and he didn't really verbally acknowledge that he understood what i was talking about.. he gave me a very vague non-helpful response like, "oh.. well.. sure.. does it matter?" I obviously don't know if it matters if I'm asking you.. you are the prof.. I am the student.. YOU help ME!!

CIV E 330 - FLUID MECHANICS
- mentions death at least 5 times in each lecture
- has a very strange undulating tone when he talks... his tone goes up and down and up and down and up and down and etc...
- does not actually teach.. he just rambles on about concepts and writes random things down on the board.. did not cover anything in class that would have helped on the assignments.. grrrrr

CIV E 372 - STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
- accent makes it a little hard to understand him
- probably the best prof I have this semester
- kinda random at times, but mostly stays on topic
- first assignment was LUDICROUS... not doable at all..
- in class examples are pretty good..
- does things FAST in class

CIV E 381 - SOIL MECHANICS
- only prof I have this semester that does not have an accent
- kinda does things too fast
- his substitute for classes he cannot make is this huge jerk of a prof..
- tries to be funny
- good notes

2) I've started doing more activities throughout the week. On Tuesdays I do wall climbing intramurals (next week is the last week though). On Wednesdays I play squash with some CivE guys and sometimes badminton after. On Wednesday evenings I play women's volleyball which will be over soon. Co-rec volleyball will start soon and that will occur on Tuesday evenings. Every second Friday I play badminton with CivE people and every other week I play something with the HUB crew. Unfortunately, we can no longer play volleyball on Friday afternoons b/c the gym we used will now be used by dance classes. Badminton maybe?

3) I want to build some arm muscle. Right now, my right forearm is larger than my left AND it's larger than my right BICEP. That's just not right. So yea.. I must fix that. I also think that my improved arm strength will help me with number 4 below:

4) I want to get better at squash, badminton, volleyball and.. pool. So pool isn't as important to me as the other three, but I think it would be cool. Five-pin bowling would be cool too, but I probably don't have time to dedicate to that.

5) Got a palm pilot. Got the hard case from that guy. So awkward all the time. Stupid guy haha.

6) The ESS finally made RED ENGG PAPER. I was estactic to pick up two pads today and sold one to Will who wanted a pad. He was pleased. (hifive)

7) I am sleep deprived. I suck at completing assignments apparently. I do them myself though b/c I don't know that many people in CivE. How lonely... haha.. I am meeting people and stuff though so that's good. I'm trying to get into the "homework buddy" mode with people with some success.

8) I finally had keylime ice cream at marble slab. They NEVER have it. I wish it was sorbet :P but it was still yummy. mmmm

9) (This is pretty much a note to myself in code.) bleep bap borp ah ha.. bleep bap borp pd pd pd eno eerht sunim tnorf sdrawkcab deb etis means...

10) It's Round 1 time for co-op. I have two interviews so far. I hope I get the steel job but I doubt it. It's pretty iffy. The other one is w/ ISL. It's a junior engineer position. That might not be too bad but I'd prefer the first job.

Ok, I'm so tired and worn out.

Damages:
Left knee --> One large bruise and one small bruise underneath. Squash. Off balance smash. Misdirected follow through. A small bounce on knee.
Right knee --> One bruise. Wall climbing. Speed climb event. Rammed knee right into large hole in wall. Proceeded to cringe in pain.
Right arm --> Two scratches that pierced first layer of skin. Wall climbing. Harnesses were newly labeled with plastic tags. I scraped arm skin along plastic things multiple times. Looks like the word for "in." Swelled up for a bit, but now just looks scratchy and scabby.
Body --> Too much activity, not enough sleep. So tired.. so.. sleeepy.. i jsuta ned soema s. slepep.zo zleepy.z z... z.z..z..zzzzz...

Posted by norwegian girl at 9:58 p.m.