Happy February!

It's officially into February for the 2009 year. How thrilling. Let's see, what happened of interest this week? Oh yes! I took my Calculus exam. It was basically toture the entire time. It was so hard and took so long (about 2 hours and 40 minutes) and my brain just felt like mush. I don't think I did that well on it, but we'll see. I think I'll find out my grade tomorrow in Calculus. I know there's going to be a huge curve on it already, so that's encouraging. I'm still aiming to match the A- I got last semester. We'll see.

I also got my first Dictation pace test back. I got an A-!! Wow! I'm so happy! Maybe I can pull off a B+ in that class. If I keep it up, it'd be amazing to get an A-, but I shouldn't expect too much. I was really worried because it's so hard. Oh boy, that was amazing to see that.

Then there's Music Theory. Yay for Music Theory! We had our first exam and I got a 96 on it. The two things I got off for were silly. I misread the directions so I just didn't do something he asked to do, and then I misunderstood another question. That class is so much fun. It's going into these intense patterns in music and how to analyze things to death. My specialties! My professor is really funny and intelligent, too. I love it.

My CS 124 class, which is doing Electrical Engineering stuff right now, is pretty hard. So far I've managed to do pretty well on the homeworks (29/30 and 59/60), but this last homework I'm not too sure about. If I just take enough time to do them and research enough about them on wikipedia and my notes, I get it eventually. It's starting to fit together nicely. There is a textbook for the class that I would most likely use to understand this stuff, but the one I bought from the bookstore I found online for about $50 cheaper... and I still haven't gotten it in the mail yet. I ordered it on the 7th of January and haven't gotten anything. I e-mailed the person I ordered it from yesterday to ask for either a refund or to just have it sent ASAP. I think I'd prefer the refund at this point since I'm already halfway through this semester of the hard stuff I'd actually need the book for. I could save myself 90 dollars. I'll take it. We'll see about that.

Oh, I said something about posting a video of myself last week... here we go. I just barely made this. Enjoy!

A New Start

So I kind of stopped posting in my blog for the past couple of weeks... I guess because I was home and in my head the people who would be reading this blog were with me or something. At any rate, here I am back at college and I figured I should finally update this thing. :)

So, Christmas was splendid. My big Christmas gift was a midi keyboard. It's so freakin' cool! I sent it to myself up here and just got it yesterday morning. It actually got here Friday night, but it was in the office, so I waited until Saturday morning to actually pick it up. Oh, I love it so much. I bought Finale Songwriter which lets me just play stuff with a metronome going with the keyboard hooked up to the computer via USB, and it actually transcribes what I play! It's so cool, man. I really like just sitting at the piano and playing stuff. Now I can actually play something and get it as music without having to write it out or remember what I put. I love it so much. That, and I just have a keyboard with me in my room. I don't have to go to another piano and play on it. Granted, I don't have a pedal thing and I have to either play it on the floor or in my lap, but it's awesome. It can play like 120 different sounds (piano, harpsichord, oboe, saxaphone, etc.) and is pressure sensative. So, it plays louder when I press harder on the keys. Man, I love it! :)

Along with the keyboard, I also got a new cell phone (which wasn't technically part of Christmas, but I got it on Christmas anyway). Along with that, I got a new number. E-mail me if you would like it. :) I purposely picked out a Samsung phone that slides. It's very very similar to the phones that they used in the Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions. :P I always said that when I got a cell phone, I'd get one that was either Samsung or Nokia (what they used in the first Matrix) and that slides up like they do in the movies. I totally have! It's wonderful. It's got so many more ringtones, free weekends and after 7 pm, receive texts for free, and I can take pictures with it! So many more features and overall cheaper to use. It's great.

I also bought myself a new camera as kind of a gift to myself. I was already going to buy myself another one (that I plan on keeping/using for more than a couple months...) and I figured I might as well wait a little longer and get it at Christmas. So, I did just that. :) I also got Guitar Hero III (w00t!), Sing Star (another version), and some CDs. Oh man, I got this special edition CD of the soundtrack to the first Matrix movie and it's so awesome. I love it so much!! It's got this description inside about the composer, Don Davis, and what he was thinking when he wrote stuff and whatnot. It's awesome. :) I also got some oboe CDs, and a Weird Al Yankovic CD.

That basically sums up the big things for Christmas. Overall a good one. I officially left my job at the movie theater as well. (!!) I just worked for the two weeks I was there and told them that I'm never coming back. One, because I just don't really like working there and it doesn't really make that good of money in the first place, and two because I'm staying up here for the summer. I've got an awesome job up here as a TA that I enjoy more and that I get paid more for, so I'll just stick with that. Walking away from concession (which I had to work quite a bit of... ugh) for what I knew was the last time, was an incredible feeling. It was kind of funny because on my last day, they gave me a write up for being over on my till on the last day I worked in front stand. They felt kind of bad about it, and kept telling me it was just part of the paperwork and they needed me to sign it. I honestly could care less. The only danger about those is if you get too much, you could be fired... yeah, don't care. :P Too bad I don't get to see free movies anymore. I'll get over it. :)

So, being back at school is going nicely so far. Missing the first two days of school didn't really matter too much, but I don't want to do it again. I didn't like going to classes and not knowing what I had missed or anything. Ugh. This weekend I could care less about practicing (which I should probably really get back into doing...) and I went out Friday night with my roommate and her friends. (Who are now my friends. :))  We went to IHOP and then to a 12:15 AM showing of Ghost Town. I overall liked it. I probably would've enjoyed it a bit more if I wasn't falling asleep during the first hour or so. :P I still got most of it, but I definitely missed some parts at the beginning. It was fun! Then, I actually planned a party for Saturday night for Music 276 people. I had missed them over the break and really wanted to just talk and have fun with them! So, I called everyone and we all met at David's place and had soup and bread for a dinner type thing, and then watched a movie. We also played some games. Aww, it was so much fun. I really do love college. :)

Okay, well I think that'll cover things for now. I'll get back into the habit of updating this thing on Sundays again. Yay!