My computer decided to misbehave today. I booted it up, checked my e-mail with Thunderbird, loaded up Firefox, messed around with my PS3 for about six minutes, then turned back to the computer only to discover that it had restarted and Windows had failed to boot.

WTF?

I canceled the startup repair because it was taking too long. I restarted it and chose Safe Mode. Again, it failed to boot. I let it try to repair Windows the second time around and, after 90 minutes, I forced a shut down and restarted with the Windows DVD. It took 20 minutes to find the Windows installation on my hard drive for some odd reason and failed to restore Windows back to an earlier time three times because of registry errors (took about half an hour each try). So, I had to do a full reinstall. That took another half hour. The cause of the failure? It just said "BlueScreen." You don't usually get a BSOD unless there has been a hardware failure or a driver failure. The first one is unlikely since I just bought the computer three weeks ago so I'm leaning towards a driver problem or a software problem. If this happens again, I'm saying "sayonara" to Windows 7 and "konnichiwa" to good old Windows XP. At least until 7 is more mature. To a CS major, not having access to a computer is a fate worse than death.

I have two very long papers due later this afternoon. Both are for computer science classes (software engineering and computer architecture). One of these papers had been formatted and was sitting on the hard drive of the very same PC that decided to screw with me. All my files are still on the thing, fortunately. I had to convert it from Word 2007 to 2003 in order to edit it on my mother's computer, which required me to reinstall MS Office. The one time I decide to save a file in .docx format it backfires on me. Even if I had been unable to recover it, all of the actual content is on Google docs. I can't believe I have to reinstall all my stuff *again*.

In addition to these two papers, I have a group project in software engineering that also has to be finished by today. We had to write a software project management plan. It just needs smoothing over now. We're not sure if we have to do a presentation because our professor contradicted his syllabus during Wednesday's lecture.

On top of all this, I still have physics to finish even though the last lecture was last Thursday. There are also two bonus assignments that I'm going to do that will consume even more of my time. I have two finals this week so I need to study for those. I don't plan on being able to get enough sleep until Thursday night. When the cats go to sleep, I envy them. Really, I do.

I'm a little annoyed right now. After downloading the x86 install of Windows 7 Pro, and performing a custom full install (because you can't upgrade from one version of Windows 7 to another without a special "Anytime Upgrade Key" that you have to purchase separately), I learned that the only way I can install a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Pro is to use the first version I downloaded from the MSDNAA site and boot from the DVD. You know, the one that told me I couldn't use it because I didn't already have a 64-bit version of Windows installed. I had to go to Microsoft's website and sift through the FAQs in order to learn about this method. So, I booted from the x64 DVD and installed 64-bit Windows 7 Pro via the custom option. Every time you use said option, it backs up your previous Windows directory by renaming it. I later deleted both the original Home Premium and x86 Pro folders. They were taking up about 12 GB of HDD space each. I have a "Program Files (x86)" folder left over from a previous installation as well, but I can't get rid of it entirely without uninstalling several programs because, for some reason, the system is using this folder as the default installation folder instead of the ordinary "Program Files" folder. Some of the program installations didn't ask me which folder I wanted to install to so they were installed there. I'm going to figure out how to fix this and I think it'll involve editing the Registry.

Microsoft needs to include good instructions on their MSDNAA website so that people won't waste their time. I also almost ended up freaking out because I didn't have a Windows Product Key, but it was listed in my MSDNAA profile as a "serial number." I automatically ignored it because my mind categorized it as unrelated. If they only list software, and it's always called a product key, why is it listed as a serial number on the order confirmation page? Also, to my knowledge, it's only called a serial number when it's in reference to hardware.

I started installing my software, starting with the Toshiba Apps and Drivers disc I created from the original Home Premium setup. It worked just fine with x86 Pro but not every app works with x64 Pro, which means that I had to visit Toshiba's site and manually download some of them. Since I have no idea what some of the Toshiba-brand ones do, I only installed what was obvious like the video card driver and the Wi-Fi one. Of course, I need to visit a few websites to make sure I have the most recent ones. For some reason, there isn't a free version of Zone Alarm compatible with Windows 7, so I switched to Comodo Firewall based upon its CNET recommendation. I was more interested in Online Armor but there's no Windows 7 version. The default Comodo setup is more anal than the Vista UAC. Every single file that tries to make a change to the system, or access the Internet, is stopped by Comodo. If you're in the process of installing something, you might get an alert several times before it's through. They have a special "Installation/Update" mode to stop the repeat alert boxes. However, if you're idle for a while (not the PC), a dialog pops up that asks you if you want to stay in that mode. At first I endured this because I was just installing software, but it quickly got on my nerves, but it's pretty easy to change the settings so it stops acting like a PC cop. I still chose Avast Anti-Virus, but CNET rated AVG Anti-Virus higher this time around. I like Avast's constant database updates. You get at least one per day.

Windows XP mode is interesting. It runs Windows XP Pro with SP3 inside a window. On MS's site, you're told that you have to enable virtualization in your BIOS, but there isn't even a setting for it if you have an AMD processor. It's enabled by default. You can maximize the window so that it's like you're running an XP machine, though. What I think is strange is the fact that you're required to set up a password-protected user account in order to use XP mode. It has the option of saving your password so that you never need to type it in, but still. Also, if you resize the XP mode window, you're sent to the XP login screen. If you close the XP window, it puts it into hibernation mode. I think you have to actually click Start -> Log Off Computer to actually close it out.

Next up: copying three years worth of personal stuff over to the new laptop. I discovered a XP to Windows 7 files and settings transfer program. MS is doing everything they can to get XP people to relinquish their OS. I'm not sure if I need to manually allow the Gateway through the Toshiba's firewall or if that will be automatically taken care of by the transfer program. I haven't installed it on the Gateway yet but it's automatically built into Windows 7. MS wasn't very clear about that, either, unfortunately.

Had my first experience with early morning Black Friday shopping today. My mother and I stood in line at Office Depot from about 5:30am to 6am until I was able to get a voucher for the Toshiba laptop. Once I had one, we sat in the car until they opened the doors. Everyone wanted the stuff on page 1 because it was the cheapest. The one I wanted was on page 4. After that, we had to stand in the checkout line for another half an hour. They were getting stuff for people with vouchers one person at a time. I was able to exchange the MSI laptop for the Toshiba one and only pay the difference between them. If I'd known that, I would have bought a PSP from Meijer yesterday because it was $30 off. My mother said she would buy me one for my birthday, and I've waited for months already because I don't like paying full price for anything, so it's no big deal.

I haven't done much on my new computer. I downloaded software from Microsoft (the student discount ones) with my mother's computer and burned back-up DVDs with the new one. Toshiba doesn't give you the discs like Gateway did, though. :( I was going to upgrade the OS to Windows 7 Pro but I downloaded the wrong version. It was listed as x64, which is what I want to upgrade to, but they meant that it was for computers that already had a 64-bit OS. So, I have to wait another four hours for the x86 version to download. Unfortunately, I think having the x64 version will mean that the computer won't be able to run some older programs. In Assembly class last Winter, Charles couldn't run Turbo Assembler because it was 16-bit. Zach doesn't think he can run COCOMO, which is needed for our software engineering project, because it's too old as well. There should be some kind of emulation software out there to circumvent the problem.

I slept for four hours this afternoon because I had to stay awake all night in order to get to Office Depot that early. After we did that, I went to get my hair rebraided (so I won't have to deal with it) and to PetSmart to buy the cats presents. I'm going to look online for interesting Black Friday bargain hunting stories. My cousin told my mother that two women got into a fist-fight at the Wal-Mart in Clio this morning. I think that the lengths some people will go to in order to obtain cheap stuff they probably don't even need is so pathetic that it's hilarious.

I finally have a good topic for my software engineering paper. The official NASA report even has diagrams I can use so I can reduce the amount of text I need to come up with. This weekend, I really need to get going on it. There are only 17 more days left in the semester. If only everything else related to academia was going so well. I know I'll pass Physics, but I really don't want to do it with a C. That's a GPA killer. I'm only slightly comforted by the fact that it's not required for my degree. And I can't register for the graduate computer architecture class without an override just yet because I'm still classified as an undergrad. But once that changes, I'll have to get an override to register for the rest of my undergrad courses. I also have no idea what I would list on scholarship applications. Am I still technically an undergrad because I don't have a bachelor's degree or am I a grad student because I'm in a dual-degree program? Maybe classifying me as a grad (pending full completion of admission requirements) is a UM-Flint thing. They don't really know what they're doing yet because this is the first year they've ever had dual-degree programs. I found out last week that the Computer Science and Info Systems grad program is only five years old. There really isn't a demand for computer people in the county. The only industries that aren't significantly affected by poor economic conditions are healthcare, education, and business, which is why they're still around here (and why the majority of people are majoring in them whether they really want to or not). Everyone else usually has to move, often out of the state. I'm not going anywhere, though, no matter how much other people insist that I should. I don't like change.

I'm sick of school and I still have a while left to go. I guess the amount of money I'll could make after earning a computer science degree is supposed to help me endure the tediousness. The thing is, the median salary of a web developer/software engineer and a database admin is a lot more than I would ever need ($80,000 and $68,000 respectively). I'm not greedy, after all. As long as I had enough money to pay bills I'm perfectly fine. In Michigan, the median is lower than, say, New York or California, but the amount of money needed to survive here is a lot less as well. Many of the people I know think $40,000 per year is a lot.

I bought an MSI laptop from Office Depot. They had to special order it because they were out of stock at the store and it's not available online. I had no idea that they would do that for you. I was able to buy it at the sale price. Our Office Depot is around the corner from Best Buy and Office Max (which shares the same shopping center). I checked out all three stores for computers not available online. I wouldn't mind working at Office Depot since it's deserted most of the time, but working at Best Buy would suck. I don't plan on opening the box just in case there are better deals on Black Friday or Cyber Monday. I saw a good one in a leaked ad for Office Depot for a Toshiba Satellite. Office Depot didn't change their ad but Office Max did (the new one is better than the old one). The computer is fine for my needs, but I would prefer if the memory was upgradable to 8GB even if I never need all of it and a processor that's capable of virtualization so I can run Windows XP mode in Windows 7. It was only $429. It's practically the only sub-$600 Core 2 Duo laptop that doesn't have an Intel graphics card. I would love a dedicated ATI or nVidia one, but I don't really have $700 to spend. I sort of feel like I'm betraying AMD, though, because I haven't had an Intel processor in one of my computers since about 2000. The other laptops I was keeping in mind all had Athlon II or Turion II processors. Best Buy has good deals right now on a Gateway and a Toshiba. The thing is, I would have to settle for less than my ideal specs for both. The Gateway's memory is only expandable to 4GB and the processor is only 2.0GHz. Toshiba laptops rarely have enough USB ports and its processor is the same speed as the Gateway's.

My mother and I are going to Office Depot tomorrow at 5:30am for the Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5992. I plan to exchange the MSI for it. I never thought I would be standing outside in the cold with the rest of the Black Friday bargain hunters. I usually participate by being entertained by those who did. Office Depot isn't nearly as popular as Best Buy when it comes to electronics so it might not be too bad. If I don't manage to get a ticket, I'll just use the computer I have. I like having a back-up plan. I also plan to go to PetSmart to buy something for the cats and it's semi-close to Office Depot.

I'm going to work like crazy over Thanksgiving Break on my two ten-page computer science research papers that are due the last day of class. One's for software engineering II and the other is for computer architecture. The second one is simple because there is a lot of information available on the Cell processor in the PS3, but the first one has been annoying me. Every software project failure that I pick, I can't find enough information on. Few people like to admit they failed at something, after all. I originally chose the AT&T software failure in 1992 that caused a nine hour long distance service outage, but the error was so minor that there isn't ten pages worth of information about it even though I've found many different sources. So, I decided to choose a NASA one. Almost all their failures are software-related, usually because the units in scientific applications should be in Metric and Americans use a different system. For example, using Pounds-force instead of Newtons. I have never understood why our system is different, either. It just makes things more difficult than they ought to be. In Physics, we have to learn how to convert between Metric units and it's sometimes difficult to evaluate the validity of our answers because we don't automatically know how large something is. If you say six feet, we can mentally picture it, but six meters is an entirely different story.

I spent 2.5 hours in physics lab last Wednesday trying to do online Mastering Physics. I didn't attend my 2:30 class at all (it's video recorded, so it's okay). I used the 3pm to 4pm time slot to study for the midterm in my 4pm class. I was able to get most of the physics homework done. Practically everyone in there was in my class and they came and went based upon their schedules. There's this one guy who's in my class who helps people but he's not a tutor. I always think it's strange for a person to be able to help people in their current class. They're learning it at the same time as everyone else, right? Josh, who is a tutor, stayed longer than he had to in order to help. He's also the lab assistant in a lot of the 143 physics labs. He's only one level above us and is a physics major.

Most people have trouble comprehending the physics concepts because they contradict much of their direct observations of the physical world. Take Kenneth, for example. He's a biochemistry major who has taken 400-level chem classes and passed but is failing intro physics. He said that he was so annoyed in lab this week that people probably thought he had Tourette's Syndrome. I have trouble with physics because I suck at math. I have no problem with the concepts. As usual, I'm an oddity.

We had a quiz last Thursday and I, once again, got a "C". If you miss even one question you end up with a "B". Like the first quiz, I missed two out of seven. One of the problems needed the radius for a calculation and he gave us the diameter, which threw off practically everyone. We just saw a number and decided to plug it into an equation. I'm not sure if I would have gotten it correct even if I noticed that he gave us the diameter instead of the radius. There was a test on Thursday over chapters 5-8. I hated chapter 5, but 7 and 8 weren't too bad. He said that the "hump" of the course was probably chapter 5. I didn't actually start studying until the night before. I downloaded a practice quiz from Blackboard and tried to work through it. I gave up pretty quickly because the last thing I wanted to do that night was physics. The test had a lot of questions from the practice test so if I'd actually worked through it and gotten help with the ones I didn't get, everything would have been great. As it was, I first did all the problems that didn't require me to use math (about a quarter of them) and then guessed on the others. The problems I tried to calculate the answers for went badly so I gave up. I had a dream the night before where I said "screw it" to the physics test and I carried that with me into the actual test. I probably got a under 60% this time, but two of the questions I guessed the answer for on the last test I got right, so I don't know. I know that if I hadn't screwed up two easy questions that I would have received a "B".

I should take physics 243 next semester, which is one of the physics courses I actually need for computer science. I took 143 as a prerequisite for 243, which is just 143 with calculus. The lecture and lab options are all in the afternoon, which is great. I'm not sure if that will be the case next Fall. I need to take the honors seminar eventually, but I don't like the guy who's teaching it next semester. Usually the dean teaches it. Dr. Thum had a point, though, which she said I should take it next semester as it doesn't conflict with anything. That may not be the case the following winter.

I decided to enter the new BS/MS program so I should take a grad class next semester. The only one I can feasibly take is computer architecture because I'm currently taking the undergrad one. I haven't even taken undergrad courses in the same subject as the other available grad courses. The cost of the grad courses as a participant in this program is the same as the undergrad courses (for me, the undergrad upper-division rate). That's a difference of $120 per credit hour.

I'm thinking about buying another laptop only because I have the money. Well, mine will be five years old in April, the CD/DVD drive works off and on, and it weighs 12 pounds, but everything else is okay. I have a 2.3 GHz processor with 64-bit architecture that I've never fully utilized because I don't have a 64-bit operating system (XP 64-bit wasn't released when I bought my computer). I recently upgraded my memory to 1.5 GB (literally 1024 + 512 = 1,536 GB) and could possibly reach 2GB (2,048 GB) by disassembling my computer to reach the second memory module (the maximum slot memory size is 1GB). My hard drive is 100GB, with 89 GB actually accessible by the OS. Currently, I have 4GB free. Seriously. I can fix that by transferring some stuff to my mother's hard drive through the network connection or by buying a bigger hard drive, though. My video card has dedicated memory but it's only 64 MB. It has pixel-shader technology, though (not sure if it's 1.0 or 2.0). I wouldn't be able to play Fable or Black and White otherwise. I was looking at the minimum system specs for The Sims 3 and the video card is short 64 GB. I don't even have enough free hard drive space. I plan to stick with The Sims 2 for a little while longer, though, since there are expansion packs I never bought and I'll play it again as soon as my CD drive decides to read discs again. It did about three weeks ago. I could buy an external one but I have two cats and dangling cords are in danger around them.

But since my laptop is still adequate for most things, I feel guilty for even thinking about buying another one no matter how much I want one. It's a waste of money and resources. I don't want to become one of those people who buy things just because they can. Intel has this article claiming that people should buy a newer computer so that they can watch HD video online. Yes, they think it's that important. The ability to do this is as much dependent on your ISP and the number of simultaneous viewers as it is on your hardware. I can stream video just fine. Personally, I'd rather download it. I think it's very amusing how people complain that a 6 lb laptop is too heavy. To me, it's light as a feather because mine weighs twice as much. It's like they weren't around three years ago when they weighed more.

I have to take note of minimum processor specs for Windows 7. I want to be able to run XP virtualization mode available in the Ultimate, Professional, and Enterprise editions that they claim no one needs but business people and IT developers, but your processor has to have virtualization technology (from CNet). AMD processors need AMD-V while Intel processors need Intel VT. I lean towards AMD because I haven't had a computer with an Intel processor since about 2000. Unfortunately, most pre-built computers have an Intel processor. Even Macs have them. It's also hard to find a computer with a dedicated video card that doesn't cost more than what it's worth. I refuse to buy a computer with Intel integrated video. I paid $1300 for my current computer to avoid that (and for the 64-bit processor that's proven useless). When the card is integrated, it has to share memory with the processor, which means that you have less general purpose memory for everything else. Video cards with onboard memory only do this when they need more than what they're equipped with.

I received a 70/100 on my first physics test. While I'm happy I, at least, passed, I messed up easy questions. That's because when a problem involves math my brain usually refuses to make sense of it. One of the questions I got wrong was a displacement problem. "A dog runs 3.0 km due east and then 4.0 km due north. What is the magnitude of the dog's displacement?" I drew a picture like a good little student and ended up with a right triangle. Instead of seeing this and thinking, "I need to use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the hypotenuse" I added the legs of the triangle and ended up with 7.0 km. Of course, that common wrong answer was one of the answer choices. The answer is actually 5 since 3^2 + 4^2 = 5^2. What's ironic is that whenever I see a force diagram I immediately use trig on it. I forgot that the same concepts from later chapters can apply to problems from chapter 1.

Another one was unit conversion. I have problems with this because I remember screwing this up constantly in high school. I would always end up using the long and complicated method of conversion because I could manage to find the correct answer. "A bin has a volume of 1.5 m^3. The volume of the bin in ft^3 is closest to: a) 53, b) 41, c) 59, d) 47, e) 35." I got this one wrong because I wrote down 1.1 m^3 at the start of the conversion instead of 1.5 m^3. Getting this one right would have earned me a score of 75/100.

The third problem I got wrong on the very first page was "Which of the following is a vector quantity? a) Temperature, b) Speed, c) Position, d) Time" This was just carelessness. I chose "speed" because I was thinking velocity, but speed itself is a scalar. I knew the answer wasn't "temperature" or "time" because they have no direction automatically associated with them. That would have left me with only "position," which is distance over time.

Getting these three problems correct would have earned me an 85/100, which is much better. Oddly enough, I got the entire second page correct and I guessed on, at least, two of them. I completed the practice test the night before but Dr. Grafe didn't put up an answer key for it, so I was doubtful about my answers to about a third of the questions. What's the point of a practice test if you can't find out whether or not your answers are right? I discovered later that he doesn't make an answer key available because many of the same problems end up on the real test. The practice test was from Spring semester so it was likely we would be seeing them again.

I always feel like I'm barely passing in math class except for Discrete Structures last winter. I managed an A or a B on all the tests. I attribute this to the fact that Dr. Bix is the best math teacher in existence. I can count the number of times I've received an A on a math test since elementary school with both hands.

Why am I majoring in computer science, you may ask? That's okay; everyone asks when I tell them that I really, really dislike math. There is nothing else I can imagine myself majoring in except English or Philosophy. I can't understand why someone wouldn't want to major in computer science.

Agile development is a software engineering method. It's when you don't plan a software project more than a week or two (at most, a month) into the future because you anticipate the requirements changing a lot. There are many complete development cycles (from figuring out the requirements to deployment) but only a little bit of the system is completed at the end of each cycle. That way, when the requirements change, you can either easily alter the code or throw away only a small portion of the finished product.

Dr. Farmer made a comparison between agile development and planning a course schedule. He said that most people don't plan out their entire college career in advance. Rather, they wait until courses are listed for the upcoming semester and only plan for said semester.

Things don't always work that way. Especially if you attend a school where your major isn't popular.

I've planned as far as two years in advance due to the way upper-level computer science courses are offered. There are only about a few hundred majors and a handful of faculty members. Many of the upper-level courses are only offered once per year unless the business-oriented computer science majors need it as well (CS for people afraid of math and physics). Sometimes, these courses even conflict with each other. I made a flow chart with every required course linked to its prerequisite and successor course(s). I later removed some elective courses that sounded interesting due to the improbability that they'd be offered any time within the next two years.

It's theoretically possible to complete the computer science degree at UM-Flint in four years but I'm not sure if anyone's actually done it. The vast majority of majors attend at least five years even as full-time students. Prompt completion solely depends on the level of the math courses you took in high school as you would be required to take calculus as a Freshman. As my high school didn't have anything higher than intermediate algebra (partially because the school was small and partially because reaching basic geometry is a great accomplishment around here), I was "disadvantaged" from the start.

Even after all of this planning, I still hit bumps in the road. I took discrete mathematics and had to drop the course. I could have taken calculus II and probably would have passed because one of the really good math teachers taught it the same semester. I took him the very next semester for discrete math and passed. I decided to take calculus II this semester and had to drop it. Of course, I took the very same teacher whose class I had to drop before, but she was the only one I could take and the course is a prerequisite for networking I, which is only offered once per year during winter semester. I'll be taking it again next semester, with the good teacher (of course). Thus, I have wasted two semesters. You make one mistake and you'll probably be thrown off, at least, a year.

I might be able to take networking. My argument will be "I was there for two weeks, so I know how to do integration...sort of. Please let me in the class."

This is what happens when you're a science major whose mind resists math comprehension.

There's an example in my physics book about catching paper money in free-fall. It might be true for non-US currency, but it would have to be the same length and thickness as a standard US bill. If you hold a bill by an upper corner between two fingers (thumb and forefinger), and have someone else place two of their fingers at the bottom edge of the bill (without actually touching it), and the first person lets go, the second person shouldn't be able to catch it by just closing their fingers and not moving their hand downward. The book said to tell them they can keep it if they catch it. However, "the bill's free-fall will keep your money safe." I tried this with myself and was able to. I'm not sure if it's because I play a lot of video games and, therefore, have a better reaction time, or if it's because I knew when the bill started to fall.

On Mastering Physics there's a problem like this, but the second person holds their fingers near the center of the bill. How long does the bill need to be (in centimeters) in order for person #2 to have a good chance at catching it? A typical reaction time (in this case) is 0.20 seconds. When I actually measure a bill, it's 15.5 cm. When I do the problem, I get 19.6 cm. Is this because I did the calculations wrong, or is it because, in the Mastering Physics world, a US bill is 19.6 cm long? Even if I get it right, I'm only going to get 50% credit. I don't even get extra credit for not using hints because I don't have the chance to use hints due to it being late. My "punishment" should be the point reduction, not hint removal. And it's not even my fault I didn't complete it on time, it's the professor's for getting behind in the lecture.

I didn't complete the problem because every answer I input was wrong. Finally, I asked for the answer. It was 39 cm. After inputting it into the equation V=∆x/∆t with the reaction time (V=39cm/0.2s) I got 195 cm/s, which is what I got when using the acceleration equation A=∆V/∆t (-9.8m/s²=∆V/0.2s). I know know it's because I didn't multiply by the reaction time twice. Acceleration is m/s/s and I needed the displacement (x). Acceleration is the second derivative of displacement. I know this now, but on a test (the first of which is this Thursday) I'm going to get it wrong. All the quizzes/tests are multiple choice because there are over a hundred people in the class and that's not a good thing. You can't get any partial credit and I have a feeling that Dr. Grafe will always have a choice on the test that will match an answer you'll get if you did the problem wrong. Then it becomes more about how well you can use an equation than if you understand a physics concept.

For example, on our recent quiz, there were two that could easily trip someone up (once of which I got wrong). Question #2 on Test B was: "Which of the following SI base unit does not have a lab-reproducible definition?" a) the second; b) the kilogram; c) the meter. My first instinct was to circle "the second" because I remember him talking about the lack of a real definition for time for about five or six minutes ("Time is what a clock measures."). I finished early so I looked over my notes and the answer was "the kilogram" since it's based on a specific artifact in France. Question #3 was "Which of the following situations is impossible?" a) An object has velocity directed east and acceleration directed west; b) An object has velocity directed east and acceleration directed east; c) An object has constant non-zero acceleration and changing velocity; d) An object has constant non-zero velocity and changing acceleration; e) An object has zero velocity but non-zero acceleration. I chose letter "e" but the answer turned out to be letter "d". The object in "e" is accelerating from rest. The object in letter "d" is moving to the left or right at a constant speed but the acceleration is supposedly changing. If the acceleration changes, the velocity has to change as well. It can't be constant.

I decided that I need to drop math (Calculus II). Last Fall I had to do the same thing (Discrete Math), but it had been after the midterm. The same professor is involved in both cases. In the current class, I was a little worried from the beginning, but the class is a prerequisite for a class being offered next semester. This week was the third week of school. We've taken two quizzes up to this point, the second one on Monday (the 21st). The first quiz could have been countered by a better grade on a later one. The second quiz was a disaster. It wasn't graded until the 22nd, which was the day after the last day a student could add or drop a class without petitioning. I tried to drop math and add philosophy 101 yesterday and was told that I would have to petition. If it was accepted (which I think it will be), I would be responsible for paying for the math class I dropped in addition to the class I added. Since philosophy 101 is a three-credit class, that's an extra $947.55. Calculus is a four-credit, or $1263.40 dollars. I really want to take 101 with the professor I've chosen, and I need to take it since I'm now a philosophy major as well, but $950 is a lot of money. I could appeal the fee for calculus, but I will have to drop it before they will even look at the appeal and I will be below full-time unless I add a class that I might have to end up paying extra for.

Two weeks isn't enough time for a student to decide if they'll be okay in a class or not, especially if the professor doesn't grade things very often. I completed the homework, was able to figure out how to do it thanks to a few Internet websites, and was fairly confident when I took the first (real) quiz. I got two problems incorrect and she almost took off half the total points. I should have learned my lesson when I took her before, but she teaches calculus all the time. She hadn't taught discrete math before. I'd calculated the risk and decided that it was manageable due to the fact that I need to complete the class in order to take networking I next semester. There were two other sections available, but one was at 8 am and the other went through physics. I plan to take it again next semester, but there are only two sections and one of them is being taught by the teacher whose class I need to drop. The other is being taught by a really good professor (I took him for discrete math the second time around and passed), but it's at 9:30am Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Four-credit classes are almost always taught three days per week, but Friday is my free day. I don't like giving it up.

In other news: I'm okay with my other four classes. Computer architecture is interesting and the assignments are manageable. Software engineering II is not as interesting as CA or SE I, and the assignments consist of short essays (1 page, single-spaced for each question), but it's doable. Physics is interesting and I can complete the assignments, but the professor isn't very forthcoming with changes in said assignments. I stayed up late on Wednesday to complete a workbook assignment that was due yesterday only to find out in class that the due date had been extended to next Tuesday. Why couldn't he have e-mailed the class about that? It wouldn't have taken longer than a few minutes. I'm also going to get reduced credit for an online Mastering Physics assignment because I didn't complete it by 4pm on Wednesday (nevermind the fact that I was at school). He was behind in his lecture until yesterday and some of the questions on the assignment were about things he hadn't covered. At least he's giving credit for late online assignments. Previously, he said that he wouldn't. (And I had to pay $45 to be able to access the online homework in the first place.)

The fourth class is the once-a-week honors independent study that I have to take until I finish my thesis. All I'm doing in the class right now is updating my academic/professional documentation (résumé, personal statement, etc.). I will begin the actual thesis sometime soon. I still need to talk to my advisor about it. If it turns out that I'll be unable to get a fee appeal, I'm going to add another credit for this class to keep my standing at full-time. I had to do this last fall after I dropped discrete structures.

I went to lunch last this past Tuesday with three people: Dr. Farmer, one of my CS professors, Dr. Pearson, the chair of the Computer Science/Engineering/Physics dept., and Ms. Pettengill, an officer in the Development and Alumni relations office. It was to honor the fact that I won a Google scholarship. As a result of this lunch, the very next day I went with Ms. Pettengill and Dr. Pearson to UM-Ann Arbor because Google was there to present and recruit. I'd never been to Ann Arbor before because I'd never had a reason to go. On the way back to Flint I had a thought: they recently added another engineering program to the catalog so we have two now: engineering science (which has four tracks) and mechanical engineering. We at UM-Flint are proud of that. If you compare this accomplishment to anything that the Ann Arbor campus does, the difference in scale is very noticeable. They would probably counter with: "We have a new engineering building!" And our engineering programs aren't accredited, so there's that as well.

Ms. Pettengill asked the Google rep if they might come to the Flint campus and the answer was no (although worded more politely). We're probably not big enough to attract major corporations (nevermind the fact that we're only 45 minutes away from Ann Arbor). She said that if we had an alumni who worked for Google then they might be able to send him or her out for a talk. To our knowledge, there is no one. Dr. Pearson told me (jokingly) that I was now obligated to get a job at Google so they could have an alumni who worked there. There are several Ann Arbor grads working for them already. That brought up a major problem the Flint campus has. After people graduate, they rarely tell the university about their accomplishments. They have no idea what most of the alumni are doing. I thought that, perhaps, I could write a PHP script to hunt down alumni based upon their public data (from LinkedIn, Google, Wordpress, etc.), but it'll be awhile before I can work on it. Homework, you know.

The talk featured four Google software engineers who work on various Google projects. Three of them worked in the Chicago office. When we first got there the room was sort of empty. Dr. Pearson said, "We could get this many people to attend on our campus." By the time the talk began, there was standing room only and it was a small lecture hall. We would have been barely able to get half that, and I'm not sure how many software engineering majors there actually are at UM-Flint. Many of the people I know are networking majors because they don't want to code their entire lives. For some reason, most people are under the impression that writing code is all a software engineer does.

Our team won at Geek Trivia after the talk. It was me, Dr. Pearson, and two Ann Arbor students. Our name was "The Team in the Back." :) We didn't win anything special, but I was able to get a Google notebook. We had 50 points total, but it would have been 51 if someone had heard me say "Queen Elizabeth" for the "Which European monarch was the first to have a YouTube channel?" question. I also contributed "Maggie" to the "Who shot Mr. Burns?" question, "red" to the "What color is Milton's stapler in the movie Office Space?" question, and "PageRank" to the "Which algorithm does Google use to order its search results?" (there's an entire Wikipedia article on that, by the way) I was surprised that I was able to answer any of the math questions. "Which function is its own derivative?" Why, e^x, of course.

I'd already heard something about the Ann Arbor job fairs being closed to Flint students but I heard more from a rep from the Career Center on Wednesday. General job fairs are open to UM-Flint students, but we have to pay $20 at the door. The specialized ones (an engineering job fair, for instance) are closed to us. Interviews are always closed to us. Many of the things they have on campus (like the Google visit) are open to the public but we never hear about them. As much as they say that our campus is equal with Ann Arbor's, there's little indication of that actually being true. Even our degrees have "The University of Michigan-Flint" on them instead of just "The University of Michigan". I'm glad I didn't try to attend Ann Arbor, though. It costs over twice as much as UM-Flint, I would have had to live on campus, and there are far too many students. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been accepted even as a transfer student, though. My high school transcript wasn't stellar by any means even though my college transcripts were decent. I also have the impression that they don't care as much about their computer science programs as they do their medical school.

Ms. Pettengill suggested that I keep a blog. I replied that I had a LiveJournal (which I don't consider a blog, for some reason) but there wasn't an actual theme. She said that my theme could now be "the life of a Google scholar." Said life isn't very interesting, let me assure you. I go to school, I come home, I do homework, I sleep, then I repeat. Interspersed throughout is website maintenance, anime-watching, and manga-reading. That's pretty much it.

I've had an unusually large amount of homework these past two weeks and school has barely started. I'm only taking five classes (Calculus II, Physics, Software Engineering II, Computer Architecture, and honors independent study) and 15 credits total. That's pretty common for me. Physics and math are four credits each, the two CS courses are both three, and the independent study is one. Physics is a lot of busy work, basically. We have workbook assignments and online assignments. There's a lab once a week as well that always has a quiz at the end of it. What's helped is that I've taken three more math classes than what is required. It's basic college physics that only needs College Algebra (although some trig is included) and I've taken Discrete Math (which requires Calculus I as a prerequisite). When they talk about velocity-time and acceleration-time graphs, I know that they're the first and second derivatives of a position-time graph. Without having taking Calculus, I would be still trying to figure those out.

Software Engineering II is starting to feel like an English class. Our first homework assignment required us to write two single-spaced 1-page answers, one for each question. The second homework assignment is the same way. In Computer Architecture, however, our assignments are pretty simple. The first one was to discuss a netbook CPU and the second is the write a program to do signed and unsigned binary interpretation. I chose to use Visual Basic since I need to relearn it in order to take Advanced VB for the CIS minor. Unfortunately, I spent three hours yesterday created a program for unsigned and signed binary addition. I restarted over an hour ago and I'm already frustrated. I'm switching to C++ because it's more user friendly. Both software engineering and computer architecture are the same number of credits, the same course level, and are taught by the same teacher, but they have very different workloads.