Hawaii? how long ago was that?

Yeah, very late Hawaii post, but it was already started, so I'm finishing it.

Sarah and I went to Hawaii.  We went to Kauai, and it was awesome.  Lots of hiking and snorkeling and eating good food.  The best was either the Korean food we had when we got there, or the sushi we had a few days into the trip.  The luau food was pretty good too, but poi is really gross.  I wish there was something good to say about poi, but there just isn't.  It's a very light purple color, which I don't think was particularly appetizing or beautiful.  It is pretty bland, and what flavor is there isn't particularly good.  The texture almost like a pudding texture that went extremely wrong and ended up kind of sticky.  If you ever have a chance to taste poi, do so at your own risk.

There are pictures I meant to post to go along with this, but they're at home and I am not.  They were mostly like the pictures Sarah posted, but all of them included a plastic squirrel named Marty that was snuck into our luggage by some crafty friends.  Marty had an excellent vacation.

Did I mention snorkeling is awesome?  At least, after our first try it was awesome.  We tried to snorkel on some beach that was pretty shallow a long way out, and in the shade, and it was cloudy, might have been raining a bit, and was a bit chilly.  Once it warmed up a bit, it was a lot more fun, and a couple of other beaches had better areas for snorkeling, where there were a ton more fish, and one had an eel.  Eels are pretty creepy little things, especially since it reminded me about a guy I saw on some discovery channel show who's thumb was eaten by an eel.  That was totally his own fault, since he had been feeding the eel sausages that seemed to be rather thumb shaped.  Bad idea.

The hikes were all awesome too.  Tropical areas are really beautiful, and very, very different from the desert I live in.  It doesn't hurt to have amazing views of the ocean popping up through the trees, or really big waterfalls (if you're hiking in the canyon).  And if we had gone further on one of the hikes we went on, apparently there is some sort of weird bunch of hippies living off the land and evading the rangers.  We didn't see them, so I'm sure it's pretty safe to assume if you go, you won't have to see them either.

Anyway, that's pretty much all of the Hawaii trip.  Oh, except for getting horribly sick at the end.  That sucked. Good thing that's way in the past now :)  Oh, and I hate Hawaii customs.  They made us eat our giant asian pear because we weren't allowed to bring it back to the mainland.  If you've seen asian pears in the grocery store, they're usually about the size of a large apple.  That's a tiny asian pear.  They're supposed to be closer to the size of a large grapefruit.  It totally wasn't cool to have to eat that when we weren't really hungry, and when I was starting to feel like crap.

So there's my Hawaii post, inspired to be completed by some show about Kauai that we caught a little of while we were setting up the computer to watch Grimm.  Grimm's a pretty cool show.  And now I'm all caught up on my blog, except for going to China, having a baby, and basically anything else that has happened in my life.

Thanks, IT department

Just have to say thanks to the IT department that came over night to switch my blue ethernet cable for a purple one.  The decor of my office has been given a depth I never knew existed until now.  Oh, and thanks for not actually plugging it all the way into my computer so that I got to waste time figuring out why I wasn't able to connect to any of the lab equipment, that was a big help.

The Dark Tower

So, I've had a couple of these books for a while (thanks Berserk), and even picked up a couple on my own, at a severely discounted price of 1 or 2 dollars each.  This left me owning #3, #4, #6, and #7.  Recently, on a trip to one of my college roommate's wedding reception, I picked up book #1 for the flight home.  It was really good.  Might have lasted me until the second day of owning it, but I think I finished it the same day I bought it.  Now I'm almost finished with #2, also quite good.

Oh, I know I said a Hawaii post was coming, and it's still on the way, just got preempted by this one.

back from the dead

For the record, I am not a zombie, just recently recovered from the worst flu I've ever had. I picked it up as a last minute souvenir from my trip to Hawaii (another post to follow later). This flu was bad enough that I missed a few days of work, and the worst of it is I didn't even feel good enough to go downstairs and play FF13. Tragedy at its worst.

Luckily, now that I'm feeling well, I can eat again. As Sarah described in her post, this flu wasn't even merciful enough to make you not hungry. The first thing I ate after feeling better was grilled cheese. The second? totally awesome habanero Cheetos. They far surpass the flaming hot Cheetos, even with the lime.

Oh, and since we haven't bought cereal since coming back from our trip, I had cream of wheat for breakfast. It seemed like a good idea to add some fun-size candy bars to it, so in went 2 tiny nestle crunch bars. It smelled like I wanted it to taste, unfortunately, it tasted more like some watered down chocolate flavoring had been added. Definitely not the best cream of wheat idea, and definitely not recommended.

new job

That's right, I am now employed with a real job. I start next Monday at Applied Signal Technology, and it is way cool. I had an interview with this company just a few weeks ago. It was a really long one, starting at 9:00 and finishing up at 3:00, with a break for lunch. It was definitely good. This place pays well, has good benefits, and does really interesting work. Most of the work I'll be doing is DoD contract work, and I'll be getting clearance to do that work, so most of you can probably expect some phone call in the not too distant future.

I'm really happy about the timing of how everything worked out. I had enough time at my RA job to package everything up nicely so that when I leave, the whole project doesn't get dropped. If anyone is interested, you can check it out here: http://dna.cs.byu.edu/airnet and it seems to have pleased the professors. Now, I'm just goofing off and relaxing for about a week until I start my new job, which, if I haven't mentioned, I'm really excited about.

Oh, one other thing I should be doing is looking around for a place to live. We've decided that commuting for a couple of hours each day won't really be the dream life, so we'll be moving closer to my work. It will probably be between one and two months before we actually move, but we're definitely on our way out of this college town, which is good since neither I nor Guildylocks are in college anymore. I don't know if I mentioned that earlier, but I officially graduated about two weeks ago, too. Anyway, be on the lookout for more information about where we're moving to and maybe a bit more about the job.

$45 steak

So, quite a lot has gone on since I last wrote.  I've had two more awesome trips to Moab, started a "class," went to Vegas, and successfully addicted some friends to a new game.

So, first, the Moab trips.  Trip one was this years Raft for the Cure.  Way better than Race for the Cure.  I don't think I can emphasize enough how much more fun it is to go rafting than to go running.  Especially when you fill the boat you're on with some good friends.  Wudan, Sukie, the boy, of course Guildylocks, and some of her friends from work all came down for this trip.  If I didn't talk about this trip last year, which I probably didn't, I should have.  It's just a lot of fun.  The lunch bbq was definitely great.  Just an all around awesome party.

So great, in fact, that we had to come back the next weekend for Moab! part deux!!  This time around, it was everyone from the first trip, minus the work friends, plus Striker.  Since we were camping, and there was talk of rain coming down in the middle of our 4th of July festivities, we splurged for a cabin, big enough for a couple bunk beds and not much else, but just fine for sleeping in.  If you're wondering what goes on in Moab for the 4th of July, it's not much, at least not from the town itself.  Luckily, we had tons and tons of great food, arches to hike around, fireworks to watch, beans to play (the aforementioned new addiction), and squirrels to sort through the trailmix and take everything but the raisins.  We call him Marty.

Now, this whole "class" thing.  Some of you are probably thinking, didn't you graduate already?  The answer is, technically, no.  Technically.  Due to a lack of employment for the summer, I pushed my graduation back to August, so that I could continue doing my research while looking for some post-college employment.  Unfortunately, they neglected to inform me that I needed to take 3 credits throughout the summer in order to be considered a student by the student employment office.  Luckily, when they terminated me, I had a couple of days to scramble into a class before the add deadline passed, and have since been re-hired.  

My class is actually really fun.  I'm taking a Capstone Project class, so basically, we have a group of 4 of us, and we are using all we've learned in college to do something cool.  That something cool is make a racing game that can be played in 3d (with glasses), and multiplayer for up to 32 players.  So far it's going well.  We just realized we have just a few weeks to get it finished up, but I'm pretty sure we'll get something pretty nice out of it.

My Vegas trip was for another conference.  This one wasn't as interesting to me as the last conference I went to, but I was presenting my research at this one, and not as just a poster this time, but a 20 minute presentation.  It went pretty well, and I even knew the answers to all of the questions people asked at the end.  The funniest things about the trip were what the two professors going with me were focused on.  One of them only really seemed to care about whether the hotel we stayed at had free wireless internet and a decent breakfast.  The other was all about eating at the best buffet.  We stayed at a hotel with a good breakfast, but their internet was down the entire time we were there.  We ate some really good food.  One night, we went to the Bellagio for dinner.  The buffet ran about $29 each, so I'm glad the university paid and not me.  It had really fancy food, from elk roundeye steak, to swordfish and sushi.  Really good.  Oh, and really good carrot cake.  I was expecting we'd find some place significantly cheaper the next night for dinner.  Instead, we went to a steak house in New York New York where they wet age and dry age their steaks for 12 days each.  I think it was called Gallagher's.  Anyway, the restaurant was way fancy, and the steaks we got were $45 each.  And then sides are ordered on top of that cost.  The steaks were also around three inches thick, and I would think were over half a pound each, maybe close to 3/4 lb. or a little bigger.  Anyway, really good food, but definitely expensive.  I just checked the online listing, and they say average price per person is $70-$80, so apparently we were really cheap.

Other than that stuff, I've been looking for jobs recently, and have a few promising leads, one of which is right around here.  I'll keep everyone posted on how that goes.

that bird just became a man

You how when you're out driving around, there will almost always be some bird that flies right through the middle of the street, really close to your car?  I used to think those birds were just being daredevils, or showing off how well they can navigate through busy traffic, trying to impress all those lady birds.  

Recently, however, I've changed my mind.  I now think that dodging traffic is some kind of bird rite of passage.  On a road trip I took a while ago, one bird failed that rite of passage.

Merry Christmas!!!...?

oh wait, I'm just confused. Must be the weather. plenty of snow. Other people might disagree, but I'd swear there's 6-8 inches of snow. All the trees are bending down because they can't support the weight. There are very few times, well maybe quite a few times, when I don't feel like getting out of bed, and they usually have something to do with cold weather and warm blankets. This was certainly one of those times. If I didn't think I had at least 8 more hours of applying to jobs from the GDC, then maybe I would have stayed in bed.

Which reminds me, I spent 8 hours applying for jobs yesterday. A few weeks ago, Brian went to the GDC (Game Developers Conference). I could have gone, if I had been OK with missing about a week of school, but that just didn't seem like it would have been a particularly good idea. Anyway, he was awesome enough to bring back a bunch of stuff from a lot of companies that are hiring right now, along with some pretty cool other stuff, like t-shirts, toys, random Chinese comic books that he bought because he liked the artwork a lot. Well, I've had this pretty decent size stack of stuff for a little while, and yesterday, I just started going though it all, applying to pretty much everywhere that I at least look mostly qualified for. So, here's hoping someone likes what they see.

Valkyrie

No, not Berserk's wife, the movie.  I saw it last weekend, and I'd say it was pretty good.  It's all about one of the plots the Germans had to assassinate Hitler.  Although most people know the outcome (there was someone next to us who seemed surprised when Hitler didn't end up dead, and a few people had to pay for their "treason"), it's well done enough that I caught myself thinking, "they're actually going to pull it off," only to quickly remember that just isn't how history happened.  Anyway, it is certainly an interesting look at WWII, and does a pretty good job pulling you into the stress and tension of fighting against the Nazis from within their ranks.

to finish school, or not...

Contrary to how I previously thought I felt about continuing school, I now find that I'm thinking it might not be so bad.  I still think I would prefer getting a job and starting some kind of career, but I've started to feel like I'd miss doing research.  

Just to clarify, this is not the kind of research you do for classes, where you have to pick a topic, go to the library, find a bunch of sources about your topic, and write about what two conflicting or complimentary points of view, pointing out strengths and weaknesses for each argument and deciding which you think is correct.  If that's what I had been doing with my professors, I think I would have stopped quite some time ago.  

Anyway, I like the research that I work on with my professors.  I like that I'm actually doing something that someone wants to use (We work with a biologist at another university).  It also turns out, that my boss wants to use my research as part of a grant proposal.  That's pretty cool.  With research like this, I'd definitely have something I could use to get a masters.  I'd even have a good foundation for a thesis, or whatever it is masters students have to write.  

I suppose the problem is, that I keep going back and forth about whether I want to keep taking classes.  Anyway, it's something I've been thinking about, and talking about.  Just another option to consider.

In other news, I'm getting married soon.  We're getting ready to send out all the invitations, so those should be arriving fairly soon.  We think we've gotten most of the addresses we need, so hopefully we'll be sending them all out in the next couple of days.

wait...what class is this?

I just got out of my biology class and I feel like venting. 

First, why do I have to take bio100?  I've already taken, and done very well in, bio120 bio220, and inbio465.  What could I possibly learn in bio100 that wasn't covered in those other classes?  So far, nothing.

Second, why do they want us to write like we just came out of high school?  I realize this is a freshman class, but should that mean I should go back to the 5 sentence paragraphs and basic essay structure I learned in high school, ignoring what I've learned about writing in my technical writing class and from experience with the papers I've submitted for publication, which, before they are submitted, are checked by multiple professors, all of which have had papers published in some journal somewhere, which is certainly more than the ta grading my papers can say.  

Third, is there a reason why more points are given out for "proper" structure in papers than is given out for accurate biological information?  I thought I was in bio100, but it looks like I ended up in English 101, with a biological emphasis.

Fourth, since when is it normal for students in a freshman class to know more about the class topic than the professor?  I know my professor specializes in environmental biology, but shouldn't he know enough about genetics that he doesn't need to ask some random girl in the class, who did a report on genetics in high school, to explain the phenotypes of individuals born with an additional X chromosome?

Fifth, why is it ok for the professor to allow a conversation on genetics and inheritance of traits degenerate into a conversation of possible causes of body hair growth in humans and facial hair on women?

don't you know...about the bird?

So, my ta job has become suddenly boring.  The class I ta for is apparently one of the harder classes we have to take.  Something about building a proxy web server from scratch.  It's kept me busy most of the time, answering peoples questions, or crushing their hopes and dreams of finally being done by pointing out one or more bugs in their program, or just letting them know that it doesn't do at all what we told them it needs to do.  The class builds up the workload for the students fairly consistently throughout the semester, until right about now.  

Right around this time, they're done with the web server, except for a few slackers, who either will turn it in for 30% credit, or won't turn it in at all.  Either way, I'm likely to see them next semester.  From now until the semester is over, the majority of their assignments consist of working through a tutorial, then showing the results either to me or the professor.  Since most of these are done in class, I don't see many students.  The few that do come to me are done in less than a minute.  At least I can get my own homework done before I go home now.

Halloween in Salem

Yes, I know it's pretty far past my trip, but it's still worth posting about.

Massachusetts was pretty good.  The conference, at least most of it, was interesting.  There were a few speakers who stood out as particularly dull, and helped me catch up on some sleep.  I presented my research during the poster session, and had a few people come up to ask me questions.  The tried to feed us snacks every few hours, I guess to make sure we weren't getting bored and let us stand up and stretch, and they also fed us lunch.

One night, for dinner, we went to Legal Sea Food with a group from the conference.  That place was awesome.  Very fancy food.  We had crab cake appetizers, and calamari.  The calamari comes in four varieties, with different sauces or cooking methods, and all were pretty good.  I had swordfish for dinner.  That is one tasty fish.  I'm kind of making myself hungry now, so I'll move on.

For Halloween, someone at the airport recommended we go to Salem and see all the stuff that's going on.  Salem has the biggest Halloween party you've ever heard of.  People from all over the state come dressed up in the coolest costumes.  I think some of the people I was with got some pictures, but I'm not sure.  The party is so big, they block off the streets for most of downtown so there is more room for people.  We saw 4 stages for bands to play, not that I recognized any of them, but they were cool.  All the witch museums are open, and I think they sold tickets to spend the night in some witch's house, but it just looked like a really old house to me.  The streets are packed with people.  I saw a lot of Jokers while there.  I also saw a very well done beetlejuice.  It gets pretty crazy, so they've got cops pretty much everywhere, probably not a night most of them enjoy, but it's good to see them around.  Oh, they also get out some carnival rides and food stands for the event.

Since I went there with my professor, we didn't stay very late.  As we were leaving, cars were in standstill traffic all the way back to the highway, and probably farther back on the highway, though I have no idea where they thought they'd park.  People had already filled up any parking lots, most of the streets, and even some small fields.

On Saturday, we decided to go out and do some sight-seeing.  We saw the Old North Church, where the lanterns were hung to signal Paul Revere, the Bunker Hill memorial, and we toured the USS Constitution, the oldest warship in the navy.  It still floats and works.  They even take it out a few times each year, but I think just around the harbor.  

On Sunday, one of the others wasn't feeling well, so we didn't do a whole lot.  We went to church, where I ran into a friend who recently moved to Boston.  That was definitely awesome.  After church, we went to the airport, and I played psp until we got on the flight and finally went home.

Stan's is out, Greg's is in

I've got a new favorite restaurant. I still love Stan's, just like I still love Diego's, and I'll still go to either of them, but Greg's has something that neither of those does, and it is very fun to go to.

For anyone who hasn't heard of Greg's, which I'd assume is almost everyone, it is a restaurant run by the last semester culinary arts students, like my room mate. It's pretty difficult to find out about if you don't have someone tell you about it, and even if you know about it, you'll have to be sure you have time on Thursday or Friday, 5-7 or 7-9, because that is the only time they're open, and yes, you do need reservations. There are only a few tables, about 16, I think, but all of them are next to the kitchen, so you can see all the chefs cooking all the meals.

The menu changes every week, and I don't mean small changes. They change everything on the menu, and center each week around some nation's food, depending on what they can get fresh. So far, I've gone twice, once for Thai night, and once for French night. They've also had German, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese is this week.

When you go in, they give you a menu and you pick one of two or three appetizers, soups, salads, main courses, and desserts. While you're deciding what you want to eat, they'll bring you some kind of pallate cleanser. For french night, it was some kind of pumpkin sorbet. After giving your order, all you have to do is enjoy each course as it comes out.

planning, planning

So, I'm guessing everyone knows already, but I did give guildylocks her ring! It was pretty awesome, even if the plans I'd made didn't go exactly the way I wanted them to, it all turned out to be amazing. Everyone should check out her post, Carebear's post, and Wudan's post for pictures and stuff. It's all pretty exciting. There is definitely a lot of planning left to do, but I think there's enough time to get everything ready.

In other news, I should be going scuba diving this Saturday, which should be really awesome.

In other news, which is both more exciting than the previous news, but less exciting than the news previous to the previous news, I'm going to miss halloween here. Why? Because I'll be at a conference in Boston, presenting some stuff for the project I've been working on all summer, listening to some speakers, and finding out how my project did in MIT's DREAM3 challenge. I didn't really end up doing much with those other students, just kind of did my own thing. As of Monday, my results were submitted and I was registered to attend the conference. Also, my abstract was finished and submitted for acceptance. So, it'll be awesome to go to this conference, but kind of sucks that I'll miss halloween.

and so it begins anew

The new semester has begun. So far, there are several totally amazing things. First, I have a new job, sort of. I was working as a research assistant all summer. When school started, I wanted to keep going with the same job. I also wanted to work more than the 20 hours allowed by the university and take less than the 9 required credits that let you work on campus. Unfortunately, the department I work for doesn't really like to deal with the paper work created by such requests. Fortunately, the professors I work for came up with what is definitely a better solution.

One of my professors needed a TA for the class he's teaching this semester. For some reason, there have been a shortage of TA's throughout the department this semester. They asked if I would be his TA for the 20 hours the university allows me to work, while doing my RA work on the side. In return for doing the RA work, they are paying my tuition for 10 credits. Switching back to TA jobs also ended up getting me a $1 raise. Also, since I had to find classes to raise my credits from 3 to 10, I'm now taking my BIO100 (required for generals, and full of freshman) as well as Japanese, which so far has been awesome.

Another pretty awesome thing comes from my RA job. During my hours, there is a graduate class held in the lab, and I've talked to the class about my project and a few of the things I've been researching. Also, I'm working with a couple of the students in that class to submit answers to the DREAM3 challenge, which sounds totally lame, but is actually pretty cool. It's all about reverse engineering gene regulatory networks from microarray data, which is exactly what my research is doing, with moderate success. I'll probably be attending the conference where the results of the challenge will be announced out at MIT. It should be around the end of October.

The Dark Knight

My, my, my... I don't think I could adequately describe how much I loved this movie!!! I already loved Batman Begins, but this one definitely kicked it up a notch. Before seeing this, I thought Jack Nicholson was the best Joker ever. I don't think I've ever been so pleased to be proven wrong. I also love the way Gotham is set up in these movies, and there are tons of one-liners that I love. Amazing movie, and definitely one that I'd recommend to just about anyone. I'd also recommend watching Batman Begins shortly before seeing The Dark Knight, but that's not necessary. Once this one hits the dollar theatre, I'll definitely see it again, maybe twice, maybe more. It's just that good.

survey says...

since these seem to be the cool thing for now, but more because I kind of feel bored and think these might amuse me slightly, and because I like to amuse myself and tend to be quite good at it, which has almost always been to my benefit:

1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
planning my next decade of awesomeness.

2. Five things on my “To Do List” today:
- go to sleep, wake up & go to work, climb, swim, and play video games.
3. Snacks I enjoy:
salsa verde doritos, spicy cheetos, a sheet of sea weed lightly sprinkled with cayenne pepper.
4. What would I do if suddenly I was a billionaire?
first, wonder where the money came from. Then, devise an awesome savings plan, worry less about income, and probably buy several videogames I've been wanting for a while.
5. Three bad habits:
- showing up a little late for work(doesn't matter too much since I set my own hours), procrastinating schoolwork for classes I don't enjoy, going to bed too late.
6. Five places I’ve lived:
colorado, germany, california, utah, the computer lab :(

7. Five jobs I’ve had:
office guy, fire extinguisher maintenance guy, fire safety technician, CS236 teaching assistant, BioInformatics research assistant.

8. Five things that MOST people don’t know about me:
I've been the president of a Karate club for the last 2 years, I can do a decent beginner's routine in gymnastics on the high bar, I collect swords and currently own about 9, I used to shoot rifles for target practice and for NRA qualifications(I think I got up to sharpshooter 6th or 7th bar, at least that's what I tell myself), I am a certified SCUBA diver.

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night? Sarah

2. What were you doing at 0800? Sleeping

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? reading my brother's blog

4. What happened to you in 2006? college

5. What was the last thing you said out loud? I think I have some somewhere, but I have no idea where I put them.

6. How many beverages did you have today? 6 - diet mountain dew(gross), dr. pepper, fruit juice mixture(good), blended watermelon(good), blended watermelon with dr. pepper(gross), dr. pepper mixed with diet mountain dew(gross).

7. What color is your hairbrush? finger color

8. What was the last thing you paid for? awesome soap.

9. Where were you last night? home.

10. What color is your front door? don't care.

11. Where do you keep your change? in various tins.

12. What’s the weather like today? hail, rain and sun.

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor? pineapple, or a good bannana.

14. What excites you? getting my new computer parts, playing games.

15. Do you want to cut your hair? maybe.

16. Are you over the age of 25? yar.

17. Do you talk a lot? no.

8. Do you watch the O.C.? Oh Crap!

19. Do you know anyone named Steven? yup.

20. Do you make up your own words? yes. in english and german, and the latter are generally accepted as being actual words.

21. Are you a jealous person? sometimes.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list? Sarah.

25. What does the last text message you received say?

26. Do you chew on your straw? no.

27. Do you have curly hair? a little bit. gives me awesome spikes.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to? bed.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life? a horrible teacher from last semester.

30. What was the last thing you ate? frozen yogurt.

31. Will you get married in the future? eventually.

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks? not sure. kind of tired of thinking about this kind of stuff.

33. Is there anyone you like right now? yes.

34. When was the last time you did the dishes? maybe last week.

35.Are you currently depressed? no.

36. Did you cry today? no.

37. Why did you answer and post this? boredome.

so, you may notice this stopped amusing me. it was probably about halfway through the second one, when it started asking questions I had to actually think about. Totally not down with real questions.

Oh, that Final...

Well, the good news for the day is that I have another chance to take the final. The bad news is, it might not matter too terribly much. I've been so behind in that class on the labs and had to skip quite a few homeworks to try to keep up on the labs, which apparantly didn't work. Anyway, at least I get to try and pass, but I guess I'm not hoping for too much.

Final? what Final?

So, it's finals week. I did fairly well with my first presentation, which, because of the number of students in the class, amounted to a whopping 3 1/2 minutes. 3 1/2 minutes of pure brilliance. My first final exam went pretty well, too. My last one, which I'll probably take tomorrow, will most likely be horrible, but if everyone else performs as consistently as they have the rest of the semester, I should still do ok. So, what about the one in between my first and last? Well, here's how it's gone so far: ...Oh CRAP!!! That was tonight?!?!?!? Guess I failed that class. A pity, really. I have emailed the proffessor to see if he'll give me another chance, but my guess is he'll say something about university policy and blah blah blah I won't get to take it. Any guesses about what class I'll be repeating?