Well, after some craziness, I’ve made it through the first week of spring term. It’s been pretty hectic, but classes have been all right.

This term I have two computer science courses and a History of Ideas course. I had different plans initially, but course catalogs for next year were released on Monday and it turned out that I needed to pick up an extra computer science course now to make up for time I will be missing in China/Japan next fall. With the trimester system, students usually take three or four classes for a full-time schedule, and generally I try to stay away from taking four at a time because I also have my internship and need that extra time for work. I had to rearrange some things on the first day this week but I think things are settled down.

My computer science classes are Linux Programming and a special topics course in XML and web services. I’m excited about both of them, since both deal with things I’ve never looked at in depth before. All of my programming has been on the Windows platform, but I have wanted to get into Linux for some time. The XML/Web Services course is also really valuable because it deals with newer technology trends. It’s always good for technology professionals to be up on the latest trends, and I know that they use some of those technologies at my work, so it’s a good thing for me to know.

My History of Ideas course is the last one in the sequence and deals with Modern Thought. The structure is much different from that of my previous HOI courses. My last two especially dealt with very little besides literature, and this one includes an emphasis on art as well. I’m a little nervous about that because I don’t know a thing about the study of art, but I guess I will have to learn it along the way. The texts that are selected for the class sound really interesting, though, and includes authors like like Mary Shelley, Freud, Nietzsche, Woolf, and more. I’m really enthusiastic about it.

Not a lot else is going on. Tonight I’m going to the annual performance of the Vagina Monologues, and I’m especially excited about it this year because I know several people who will be in it. Other than that, I’m not sure–we haven’t set up our COW events for this term yet so I don’t have a lot to do. I’ll let you know how everything pans out! Happy Week 1!

So it’s the final Friday of my woefully short Spring Break.

As I initially predicted, I didn’t get out too much.  As I had not initially predicted, a lot of that was due to the flu that I mentioned in my last post.  The fever only lasted a few days,  but I was coughing and miserable for a while afterward, which kind of took the wind out of my sails as far as going on wild Spring Break adventures.  On the plus side, it was pretty much awesome to be able to relax for once.  I had absolutely zero obligations.  It’s a beautiful thing.

We did get to go to Mitsuwa and Woodfield Mall on Sunday though.  Woodfield Mall always blows my mind.  It’s so much bigger than the malls out by my house, and it has pretty much everything you could ever dream of.  I mean, seriously–a Lego store, a Teavana, every video game seller you can think of–and that was pretty much just a corner of it.  It’s a geek’s dream. 

Mitsuwa was also entertaining as always.  I like to go there to pick up exotic Asian foodstuffs and spend a day cooking.  This time around I made miso soup, which turned out pretty well considering that I forgot to buy a major ingredient.  You can’t have miso soup without miso (fermented soybean paste, basically), and I got that much right, but there’s a special kind of vegetable stock made with kelp called dashi that I neglected to pick up.  I made it with regular vegetable broth instead, which was OK but not as good as dashi.  Oh well–now I have an excuse to go back so that I can try again.  I also want to visit a store near school called Super H-Mart, which I hear is similar to Mitsuwa, and might be a lot more practical since Mitsuwa is so far away.

I don’t know if I’ve talked about my cooking hobby much, and that’s probably just because during term I don’t have enough time to play around in the kitchen.  It is one reason that I’m kind of thankful I don’t live on campus–I have consistent access to a fully stocked and functional kitchen.  Some of the residence halls have kitchens and everything, but I like using my own space because I tend to make a mess. 

My mom works in a deli and I have a lot of other family members who love to cook and bake, so I sort of picked it up from everyone around me.  The funny part about all that is that I’m really bad at cooking basics, but good at advanced techniques.  For example, I can’t make a grilled cheese to save my life, but I can make a pretty good rice pilaf.  When I’m bored (in this case, in the latter half of break when I was feeling better but still hanging around the house) I like to find really bizarre and complicated recipes and just spend a while putting everything together.  For example, Wednesday night I made ridiculously fancy mint-chocolate cupcakes according to this recipe I found online.  I did the whole thing, including making the cupcakes themselves from scratch as well as a ganache filling and buttercream frosting.  Everything turned out really well, but it took a long time to make.  At least I’m the only college kid I know who has ever made a ganache (though please inform me if I’m wrong in the comments!)

I have one more brief thought to share with you: save your coins!  While I hear that quarters are highly sought after in the dorms for laundry purposes, it’s a good idea to save them up in general.  I’ve been hoarding my spare change for a while now, and earlier this week I finally hauled it off to a CoinStar machine (my bank is a little weird about coin counting, but that’s another story).  Turns out I had almost $90 saved up!  I’m going to use the money to pay for books this term.  So there’s a lesson: keep the change!

Anyway, I’m off to make the most of the time I have left before classes start Monday.  Happy weekend, everyone!

Well, I (and hopefully all NCC students) have made it through finals!

I had a little bit of everything for my three finals this term. In my History of Ideas class we had an essay test (which is my favorite exam format, which may make me weird), in Discrete Structures we had a regular math-test-style exam, and in my Feminist Perspectives class we had to write a paper and then give a short speech about it. I think I did fairly well, but grades haven’t been posted yet so I’m not sure. I usually underestimate, though. I’m just happy to finally be done with Winter Term.

As for Spring Break… well, I kind of have to see on that one. All of my original plans for Spring Break (trips and etcetera) have been canceled because of scheduling conflicts, plus all of my friends will be working a lot over break, so I don’t know how that’s going to pan out. I actually have the week off of work and everything. It’s also unfortunate because I came down with a bad flu on the last day of finals. I was sick for that last speech, and, let me tell you, dragging your butt out of bed at 5 AM to make sure you can get to school on time for your 7:20 final, in which you have to give a presentation, is not fun in any universe. It’s even worse when you drag your butt out of bed and discover that you have a cough, body aches, and a 100+ degree fever. Ibuprofen helps but I still felt like crud. It’s gotten a bit better by today but it’s still no fun. If I’m feeling OK I have plans to go back to Mitsuwa on Sunday, but that’s really all I have going on.

By the way, have I mentioned before that I have about an hour-long commute, one way, to get to school? It’s not fun. Losing two hours a day in transit takes a lot out of possible homework or relaxing time. I used to take the train to school every day, which was convenient because I could work on stuff on the way, but I got tired of living by Metra’s schedule. Now I catch rides, which is cool for schedule flexibility but it’s hard to do homework in a moving vehicle. My work is also close to school, so if I’m working in the morning I have to get up at 5 AM so I can there by 7:30. You kind of get used to it, but it would still be a lot more convenient if I lived closer.

I’ll let you guys know if I’m able to do anything cool. Really though, I’m just grateful for the chance to relax for a bit. See you later!

Today was the last day of winter classes, and I have mixed feelings. This has been a really challenging term, so on one level I’m really glad that it will be over. All term I’ve had to do a total of more than 100 pages of reading every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for my Feminist Perspectives and History of Ideas classes. The coursework was interesting, to be sure, but it was just a lot to digest on such a regular basis. On the other hand, the classes themselves were interesting, so I’m sort of sad for them to be over.One of the highlights of this term, coursework-wise, has been the labs we’ve been doing in my Discrete Structures 2 class. In Discrete 1, we studied a boolean algebra and logic gates, which basically make up a really low-level kind of computing where electrical circuits can be used to do mathematical operations. It’s crazy computer science stuff. Anyway, in the first class, we did all kinds of problems with boolean algebra and drew out the circuits on paper, but that was pretty much it. In Discrete 2 we actually get to build the circuits and see them work. Our last lab was to basically make a little machine that counted from 0 to 9, which is a lot harder than it sounds. After spending hours and hours unplugging and moving around wires, it’s REALLY satisfying to see little lights blinking away.That’s my life as a computer scientist, I guess. “OOH! Blinking lights! I did something right!”Anyway, it’s finally the weekend, and even though I’m going to have to spend time preparing for finals and whatnot it’s always better to be able to do it on my schedule. And then SPRING BREAK. Some of my friends and I were going to visit Mall of America, but we’re pretty much all broke or busy, so instead we’re scaling it down to maybe spending a few nights in downtown Chicago. If I do anything fun, I’ll let you know. Good luck to everybody on finals!