I have been kind of busy. I have also been procrastinating a lot. In fact, when I think about it, I do not have more to do than before, I am just procrastinating more. Oh well. That’s college for you.
I had to write a long paper for my english class. It was a standard 5 paragraph, 2-3 page paper. The teacher was talking about how the paper had to be really good and how we had to really dig deep and get good ideas. Then she went on to explain to us about how to write a 5 paragraph paper and how to formulate a thesis. Wow. Mrs. Hood taught this to me a long time ago, like in 8th grade. The teacher then started to tell us about some of the common mistakes of a ‘high school’ writer. It was very similar to the speech that Boxy gave us about common mistakes of a middle school writer. Needless to say, the rough draft of the essay took me about 1.5 hours to complete. One of the main differences between high school and college english is the style of writing expected. I decided to push the limits on profanity on one of my recent papers. I got a 100%. I have since realized that the grade I receive on a paper is in direct correlation with the amount of profanity I use.
I have continued to participate in the BarnacleSat meetings. I still know virtually nothing about satellites and what exactly we are going to do. I have come to the realization that a satellite is something like a robot. Only much much more complex. Unlike a FIRST robot, there is no ‘hacking’ to get a piece to fit. Or hoping that a certain voltage will be enough. Or not knowing the exact current draw of the entire robot at any given time. Right now we are going to the other 2 satellite groups at MSU and asking them about their satellites. In FIRST we spend no more than a couple of days planning the robot, hopefully only 2-3 so a rolling chassis can be assembled within the first week. For a satellite, the entire thing has to be planned out, not only mechanically, but also electrically. If I don’t get too intimidated and leave, I will definitely learn a hell of a lot from this.
In other news, I took another math exam last week. I feel fairly confident that I aced every question except one, and I am pretty sure I got that one right as well. I made sure that I explained all my work so they can’t take away any of my precious points. Hopefully it will all turn out OK in the end.
I decided to run a small application called driftnet on my computer running linux. It sniffs the network for pictures being transferred and displays them in a window. In hindsight, I suppose that running it on Saturday night was a bad idea. I should have run it on a school night when people are looking at more academic web sites. I was kind of surprised that the program found any pictures at all. It supposedly only works on non-switched networks. I was under the impression that the network here was switched. Oh well.
My grandparents and Carly are here for family weekend. Yesterday we went to some dinner where we were served mediocre food and were given a speech that was somewhat pointless. It was given by the dean of students and basically bragged about the school. I am already going here, I don’t need to here how great this school is. Then this morning, I went to breakfast with them. I am not used to having breakfast on the weekends. I usually am lucky to wake up in time for lunch. But I was forced to wake up at 9:50. After breakfast we went to the football game between MSU and Portland State. We came back and tied the game in the last 4 seconds after being down 10-21 at halftime. Then we won in overtime. After the game we went out to dinner at Applebee’s followed by listening to a comedian back at the University. It was a much more productive day than most of my Saturdays.