End of Week 21 - Home for Another Weekend

"4 of my guitars"

Yup. It is hard to believe, but my 21st week of college is now over. I have been coming home every weekend since the beginning of the school year because it is nice to have a break at the end of each week.

Time to appraise my math professor. :-D

Today I got a quiz back in my math class. It was a quiz that I had taken last week, and I actually received an 89 on it! My math professor does a phenomenal job with teaching math topics to people who haven't really had much experience with them. The 89 that I received was on a quiz based on material that I had never seen just a week before the quiz. When my math professor is explaining new things to us it seems like everything she says makes perfect sense. She carefully walks us through each step and she explains everything she does along the way. I suppose that it helps that she isn't technically a Mathematician, but instead an Electrical Engineer. Her profession is very similar to the one that I am working towards. This helps because she thinks and talks the same way that I do, so it makes her the perfect math instructor for me. I have a math exam next Thursday, but I am confident that I can do well on it. :-D

Well, that is pretty much all that is new with me right now. I plan on enjoying my weekend, and I will soon be starting my 22nd week of college! I don't think that I have to say that I am quite proud of myself. I have a long ways to go, but I am not complaining one byte.... or even a bit! :-D

Turned in LOADS of Circuits Homework!

A student in my circuits class and I completed a bunch of homework that we were missing, and I turned mine in today. I should be all caught up on all of my work now. It is a huge relief to finally have the homework out of the way. I should have done it as it was assigned, but unfortunately I ended up being extremely stressed out for the longest time, and I found that I couldn't think correctly in order to do my homework on time. It is all complete now though!

This picture here is of the "Green" building at Vermont Tech. This is where the majority of my classes usually take places, and this is also the building where the Electronics Labs are. This building is HUGE, and it also has a pretty cool walkway (currently buried) heading up to the main entrance. :-D

A Very Lucky First Day Back From Vacation!

"Outside of the Admissions Building"

Today has been going great, and for the first class day after a vacation I couldn't ask for anything better. I ended up getting lucky because, not one, but two of my classes were canceled today! Both English and Math were canceled, so I only had Fundamentals of Circuits II and a C Programming Lab. My 2-hour English lab for tomorrow was also canceled which means that I only have 2 hours of classes tomorrow! This also means that my busiest day this week will be Friday which is only 4 hours of class time. :-D

I still have a fair amount of circuits work to catch up on, so I am going to be using the time that I would normally be in classes to get caught up. I have an optional quiz in circuits on Wednesday, but the deal is that if we take this quiz and do better than ANY other quiz we have taken previously then it will replace that lower quiz grade! It is a no-brainer for me to take the quiz because there was one quiz that I took that I didn't do too well on. I am sure that I can do well on this quiz though.

In other news, I made a dvd with some recordings of Roderick Russell's latest show at Vermont Tech and a video of me playing "Hells Bells" by AC/DC, and they are going to be broadcast on the school's TV station! Pretty cool eh?

That is all I have for now. I might go down to The Rat later. The Rat is actually now, officially, known as the "Tortilla Express," but since I think that is one of the dumbest, most uninteresting, names ever I refuse to call it by its new name! Sure, some people wouldn't want to eat at a place that is called "The Rat," but they also don't have any Mexican food except for nachos really... :-D

╔╩╦╩ VACATION!!!! ╩╦╩╗

"Roderick Russell in a Straight Jacket and 80 foot Chain"

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I completely forgot to mention on this blog that I have this whole week off!!!! I have been extremely busy in school recently. My courses are far more challenging this semester than last semester, and my new schedule is something that I am still adapting to. While I have been doing an awesome job in all of my other classes, recent events, not to be mentioned here, have caused my circuits grades to slip dramatically. The homework usually requires my full concentration, but I haven't been able to focus on it because a lot of stress has been getting in my way. I shouldn't allow outside stress to affect my education, but as a freshmen it is still something that I need to learn how to cope with.

I know that it is vital in terms of my education, and my career, to not let stress get in the way of my performance. I have decided to dedicate a good portion of my vacation to getting caught up in all the work that I have missed in my circuits class, including 2 lab reports that need to be typed. There is no debate about how I should spend my vacation. I should have completed the work when it was asked of me. Now that I am in a much clearer state of mind I need to take this divine opportunity to catch up on all of my missed work. One thing is for sure, when I go back to college after vacation, improving my work habits in the presence of stress is going to be my top priority.

My other courses seem to be going pretty well right now. Math is so much better this semester than it was last semester. My new professor is actually an Electrical Engineer, so she really speaks my language. She is also a really cool and nice person, and that is just one of the many things that makes her a great teacher. All of the subjects that are covered in this semester's math course are explained in detail. It is not that we spend a lot of time learning new things, it is actually the fact that we don't have to spend a lot of time learning new things now. Everything just makes sense. Math was my biggest worry about the major that I chose. I am in Vermont Tech's toughest major. It is the toughest because it relies the most on math. The math course that I am currently taking gives me a huge boost of confidence that I can be very successful at Vermont Tech. My circuits grades are really scaring me right now, but that just means that I am going to work my ass off to make things better! :-D

The biggest thing that I have learned so far this semester is that I can't let stress hold me back. I need to learn how to cope with it. College is going to stress me out. I need to learn how to handle this stress before it really starts to mess with my career. With today's economy I feel that I really need to get my Bachelors Degree. The fact that I am in the toughest major at my college will further increase how proud I will be of myself when I successfully graduate from Vermont Tech.. :-D

I will probably post again on the Sunday that I get back to my college. I really wish that I could post on this blog as much as I used to, but I will be able to once I get back on track. I hope that any Vermont Techie's that are reading this are also having a great, and very much needed, vacation. See ya Sunday!

Concert Was Awesome!

Sorry for taking so long to post, but I have been extremely busy at school lately. I wanted to let everyone know that the Eve 6 concert was AWESOME. I got to stand directly in front of the stage the whole time, and I was only a few feet from the lead guitarist! I took a bunch of pictures of the band, and I was even able to record some video footage. The footage that I got came out really good, but the sound quality is bad because my camera's microphone couldn't handle it. The concert was a lot of fun. I am hoping that I do something like this again soon. :-D

In other news, Roderick Russell, the sword swallower/magician, will be back at the college tomorrow to do another act. This time I should be able to actually record his whole performance now that I have a camera that does video! I will hopefully post that tomorrow night...

Going to an Eve 6 Concert Tonight!

Tonight I will be going to see the band "Eve 6" perform live at the Pickle Barrel in Killington, VT. I know that it is going to be a lot of fun. They are a pretty good band. They actually do the song "Here's to the Night" which is awesome because that is the song that was played as the marching out song at my graduation. It will be really cool to see them live. This will be the first concert that I have ever been too, so I am really looking forward to it. I will actually be leaving in about an hour to go to it. :-D

Anyway, I haven't had enough time to post to the blog for over a week now because things have been keeping extremely busy, but everything is going great. Vermont Tech will be bringing Roderick Russel (sword swallower/magician) back to the school for his second show. Now that I have a new camera that can record video I plan on recording it and then posting his act on this blog..... hopefully this will make up for me not posting in a while.... :-D

If you would like to listen to "Here's to the Night" just follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P-ZteihW60