Spring Break Update

It's funny how these stretches of "time off" like Spring Break don't really mean that much to upper division instructors. :-/

Despite having no classes this week, I nonetheless still have two programming assignments and two term paper proposals to finish by early next week. No slacking off for me it seems! I've spent two of my Spring Break days in the computer lab and the rest of my free time with my nose in a book, doing preliminary research for my term papers. Also, I've tried to get myself caught up in the reading for two of my classes where I'd fallen behind. Doesn't leave a huge amount of time for goofing off, I tell ya!

Last week was midterm week for most students. For a short bit there, it looked like I would be scheduled to take three (3) exams in the same day...one right after the other. Fortunately, one of the instructors (Dan Massey, naturally) took pity on those students who had more than two midterms in a day and scheduled a make-up exam the following day, which helped me out immensely.

Regardless, I still did rather poorly on my exams. With grade curving, I may have squeaked by with a vaguely acceptable score on my Embedded Systems and my Operating Systems midterms. I still don't know how I did on my Principles of Programming Languages exams, but considering I drew a complete blank on how to solve the last problem (accounting for 25% of the test), I'm not expecting much. From the sounds of it, I may have done reasonably well on the Networks midterm...so I guess it could be worse.

Ugh. I guess I'll have to really push here in the second half of the semester to make sure I pass these classes.

Geez, is it really the midpoint of the semester already? I know I've been insanely busy with homework, projects, and reading, but it still has that feel like I've only really gotten started. The thought that I really only have a month or so to complete a couple of term papers, a presentation, countless homeworks, and the programing of a computer game....well, sometimes I just wanna run away and hide. :-)

What else can I report?

Kate had a milestone birthday at the end of February. I won't say how old she is naturally, but I can say it's divisible by 10. ;-) Kate got flowers delivered to work from her folks and I brought her roses when I came to pick her up. We had dinner at Red Lobster, compliments of my folks, and I bought a huckleberry ice cream cake for her to share with our friends later the following weekend. All in all, it sounds like she had a good time. :-)

My niece Julie turned 5 last week! Sadly, our schedules prevented us from going down to see the little one - but we were thinking about her. Hopefully, she doesn't mind a belated birthday present. ;-)

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Pardon me while I get my nose back to the grindstone. :-)

As always, thanks for reading. Hope you're having a great day.