Tuesday-Oh Right, Posting!

Wow it’s late! I had just climbed into bed when I realized that I hadn't posted.  Today was another fun day filled with miserable weather.  It started raining this morning and it’s still raining now!

This morning I had my Vector Geometry recitation.  Well, I was supposed to...I went to the classroom and no one was there, including my TA.  I guess since there's no new material, there isn't a recitation.

Instead I got some lunch and then went back to my room to work on some World Regions Atlas Quizzes.  I borrowed the atlases from Brian, my Galileo mentor, who took the class last year.  The credit from the quizzes combined with the final exam should push my points over the A+ level!

After that, I went to Calculus and got my third test back.  I only got an 88, but combined with the 10 points of extra credit I have from another assignment it will be a 98! After we went over the test we started learning L'Hospital's Rule.  It's kind of funny; we spent all semester learning to take all kinds of integrals only to start L’Hospital’s Rule in the last week of class.

After Calculus I was riding back to my dorm when I ran into Tim and Mikey, two of my friends from high school who now go to Tech.  We all went to Hokie Grill and got dinner together. While we were eating Rohit, another student from my high school walked in.  He came over and we all talked for a bit.  After dinner I went back to my dorm and completed two more Atlas quizzes. 

Now comes the fun part! At 6:30 I went back across the drill field to Burruss for the World Regions event. Red Bull was there to film a documentary about our class and handed out a can of Red Bull to all of the 3000+ students in the class. We watched a movie called Bouncing Cats, which is about Abrahmz Tekya's struggle to create a workshop teaching kids about b-boy culture, break-dancing and Hip Hop in Northern Uganda.  It was a really inspiring movie and was very enjoyable.  After the film, Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón, who taught b-boy classes in Uganda, and Abrahmz both came out on the stage to answer questions and discuss the film.

Well that's all I have for tonight.  See you tomorrow!

Monday-Back at Tech

Despite some gloomy weather I had a great first day back from Thanksgiving Break.  It stared out cloudy and a little chilly this morning, but it warmed up a little by noon.  However, at five the temperature dropped and it started to drizzle.  Not enough to warrant using an umbrella, but enough to make getting to class miserable.

I started this morning with my physics lecture. We just went over a few of the major things we learned throughout the year.  Right after that was my Vector Geometry lecture, which was just a review for the next exam.  After that, I came back to my dorm and worked on the critical responses for Engineering Cultures.  A while later, I went to World Regions, where we spent about two hours talking about Japan.  We were supposed to finish Japan and spend most of the class talking about India.  Professor Boyer said that we would watch Inception as our final class film, and its a 50/50 chance that he was being serious. We'll have to wait to see what happens!

Tomorrow should be another interesting World Regions event.   There will be a screening of the film Bouncing Cats, followed by the first reunion of the stars since it was filmed.  Red Bull will also be there filming the class as part of a documentary.  They'll be giving out free Red Bull to everyone there as well.

Tune in tomorrow to hear how the event went.  Thats all I have for today, see you tomorrow.

Friday-Back home!

After four hours of driving I am back home with my family!  I caught a ride home today with a friend I know from Boy Scouts.  We left Tech at 5 pm and four hours later we stepped out of the car.  I-81 was congested so we ended up taking Route 603, which was an amazing drive.  There were icicles, mountain streams, huge rocks balanced on the sides of hills; it was great.  We got back on 81 and drove for a while.  We got off onto Route 340 and cut through Stuarts Draft and then got onto Interstate 64 and stayed on that until we got home.

I won't be posting every day during thanksgiving Break, but I'll keep you updated with any school related activities.  I still have quizzes in Vector Geometry and World Regions that I need to complete.  Thats all I have for today, see you soon.

Thursday-Pre-Thanksgiving Break

Today was my pre-Thanksgiving break.  My calculus teacher canceled class, and since calculus was my only  class today I had the entire day off.  Since I'm leaving for home tomorrow, I used the opportunity to clean my room, wash my clothes, and pack my bags for Thanksgiving break.

This evening Virginia Tech played the University of North Carolina, and of course we won.  It was a little worrying at first because UNC scored a touchdown at the start of the first quarter and Tech didn't score until the middle of the second quarter.  Then we scored a touchdown and a field goal before the end of the half and then two more touchdowns in the third quarter. Near the end of the game, though, UNC scored two more touchdowns bringing it up to a three point difference.  However, time ran out and Tech won!

I'll be catching a ride to Richmond with a friend tomorrow afternoon, so my next post will be written from home! That's all for tonight.

Wednesday- Last physics lab

I had my last physics lab of the semester today, and what a lab it was!  We started to work on thermodynamics in physics.  In this lab we used heat engines and fire pistons.  There was boiling water, ice, fire, and pistons.  It was an awesome way to finish up the semester.

This evening was another World Regions movie night.  We watched a movie called "Rabbit Proof Fence" which is based on a true story about three mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement to return to their Aboriginal families.  It was a pretty good movie.

Thats all I've got for today.  See you tomorrow!

Tuesday- Backpacking Photos!

I finally got around to getting all of my pictures together from the backpacking trip.  Like last time, I created a slideshow with captions on each of the pictures.  Enjoy:






I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Thats all I have for tonight, see you tomorrow.

Monday-Not much to say

I've been busy studying for my Calculus test tomorrow, so I haven't had time to go through my photos from the McAfees Knob trip this weekend.  I'll have time after the test, so I will write about my trip tomorrow.  Until then, have a picture:

I don't really have anything else to talk about so I'll see you tomorrow with more pictures from the trip and a full write-up.  Now I'm off to bed!

Friday-On my way

I am on the road to the Hopper Creek campground, where we'll spend the night before heading over to the McAfee's Knob trailhead. 
Today was a big physics day. First, I had my physics recitation this morning. Then I had a physics lecture in the afternoon. Finally, I had a physics test this evening. Lots of physics.  I also completed an assignment for Engineering Cultures.

That's all for this week.  On Monday I'll be back with lots of pictures from the hike.  Have a good weekend!

Thursday-Winter has arrived in Blacksburg

The past couple of days have been pretty windy, and when I woke up this morning I found that the leaves have been blown off the trees.  To me this signifies the unofficial end of fall and the start of winter.  Instead of warm reds, oranges, and yellows, the trees are gray and brown.  Although the temperatures haven't changed much, it certainly feels colder.

This morning I went shopping for my backpacking trip this weekend.  I'm meeting up with my troop to backpack up to McAfee's Knob.  I'll be leaving tomorrow at around 8pm.  I'm going to try to post tomorrow, but between packing my backpack, taking a physics test, and writing an Engineering Culture essay, I'm not sure there will be enough time.  I will be posting on Monday for sure with pictures from the trip.  Here's a picture of the McAfee Knob overlook that I found online:

After getting back from Kroger, I finished my Calculus extra credit assignment, which was to explain how use the shell method to find the volume of a revolved function.  After that, I worked on some physics problems with a classmate to prepare for the test.  Then I went to my calculus lecture, where we worked on some calculus problems to prepare for the test.  We also went over Simpon's Rule, which is a method of approximating the area under a curve.

Tonight was actually a football night, and Virginia Tech beat Georgia Tech 37 to 26.  During the game I had to take a break to go outside, though.  Remember how I said it felt like winter?  Well nature decided to play along; at about half-time it started to snow! It continued snowing for about an hour.  Unfortunately, it was 37 degrees outside, and all of the snow melted almost instantly.  It was fun though! Here's a blurry snow picture!

Thats all for today.  Hopefully I'll see you again tomorrow, but if not have a good weekend and I'll see you on Monday!

Wednesday-Sorry, no real post.

I'm trying to get ready for tomorrow, and ultimately this weekend, so I don't have time for a full post.  I'm going on a backpacking trip, so I need to pack my pack and get all of my food together.  See you tomorrow for a full post.

Tuesday

I got up early (well early for me anyway) today for my Vector Geometry recitation. After recitation I got lunch and came back to my dorm.  I had some free time before my next class, and I ended up making a sword out of cardboard and PVC pipe. I'm going to use it to practice for Epic Battle Club so I don't catch another sword in the face!

Next I had Calculus, where we practiced integrating various functions so that we can get ready for our last test.  We are going to have to use six different methods of integration on the next test!

This evening I had two activities, my large Galileo seminar and a World Regions film event.  In Galileo, we had a graduate student come in to talk to us about time management. I thought it was funny that we're learning about time management now, when the semester is almost entirely over.  In World Regions, a group called Invisible Children came in and showed a film called Tony, which is about how the life of a Ugandan boy has been affected by the activities of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.  The organization's founder and a girl from Uganda were at the event, and they talked to the class and answered questions.

This article used to be longer and a lot better written, but I accidentally hit the back button and lost all of it.  Oh well, I guess I'll be sure to save next time.  That's all for tonight; see you tomorrow!

Weekend Recap!

Happy Monday! I actually remembered to post...barely!  I had a busy weekend.  On Saturday at 2:00 I went down to the lounge where a bunch of people from Nerf Wars were meeting to cook food.  We made Chicken Curry Pot Pie, Shepard's Pie, Potatoes, and Crumb Cake.  Since it was November 5th we watched V for Vendetta.  After the movie a few of us brought down our computers and played Team Fortress 2. We took a break to Deet's Place and DXpress and them went back to Lee Hall where we played TF2 until about 3am.

Since I was up until 3am the night before I slept in on Sunday.  After I woke up, I took my Vector Geometry quiz and did some other work I needed to finish before Monday.  Then I went to the weekly meeting of Epic Battle Club at Virginia Tech.  I don't really know how to describe it, so just read this article.  I had a good time until I got smacked in the face.  I thought I was fine and I kept battling until they told me that my nose was bleeding all over my face.  I went back to my room to clean up and it took almost 20 minutes before the bleeding stopped.  However, I'm planning on practicing and going back.

Today was a pretty standard day, Physics Lecture, Vector Geometry Lecture, World Regions Lecture.  In World Regions we had an extra credit "Flash Quiz", which is a quiz on the topics covered in class.  However, unlike regular quizzes you only know about it if you come to the lecture and you inly have five minutes to take it, so if you skipped class you probably won't get any points.  Thats all I have for today.

Friday, Friday, Friday!

Overall, today was a good day.  Overall being the important word there; It didn't actually start out too well.  This morning I fell out of bed.  Now that doesn't sound like a big deal, until you remember that my bed is lofted six feet above the floor.  The hard tile floor. I'm fine, just a little shaken, and my right leg which I landed on is a little banged up. After I had made sure I was OK, I took a shower, got dressed, and went to my physics lecture.  The fact that all of these things took a little longer than usual, and that the elevators were closed for maintenance, led to me being 20 minutes late to my lecture...not good.

After physics, I came back to my room and prepared for my second Engineer Cultures exam.  When I was looking for the study guide for this weeks test, I accidentally opened up from my last exam.  Now in the automatic Scholar grading software, it says I got a 19 out of 25, which would be a 76.  However, five of those 25 points belong to an extra credit problem, so in reality I got a 19 out of 20, which is a 95!  That made me feel much more confident about this test.  I also found out I got 10/10 points on my last 2 threaded discussions.  At the beginning of the semester I was thinking about dropping this class, but now I'm glad I didn't!  After figuring that out, I eventually found the study guide, prepared for the exam, and took it.  The exam is fully written, so I'm not sure what score I got, but I'm pretty confident I did well.

Today is Friday, which means tonight was Nerf Night! For some reason, there weren't many people there this time, so we played mostly lounge battles, which are, as you can probably guess, battles played in the lounge instead of the hallways and stairwells.  Our last game of the night was a blacklight battle, where the only sources of light were blacklights in each corner of the room.  Since the plastic from the Nerf guns is fluorescent, this looked really cool.

After Nerf wars, a few people went to Deet's to get ice cream and other treats.  After that, some of us went over to Cochrane Hall, where we set up a projector in one of the lounges, popped some popcorn, and watched the movie "How to Train Your Dragon".  After that, a few of us came back to Lee, set up the projector in the hallway and watched some Youtube clips until about 4 am.

This has been a busy week, and I haven't posted every day, but the next few weeks shouldn't be as bad, and I will be sticking to my schedule!  See you on Monday!

Thursday-Super Post!

Sorry I haven't posted the last two days; things have been remarkably busy this week.  But I'll make up for it with this special Super Post!  I'm going to start out with Tuesday

Tuesday started early with my Vector Geometry recitation.  Right now we're learning about vector displacement, velocity, and acceleration.  During the recitation we calculated how to tranquilize elephants.  After that I went to my Calculus lecture.  In Calculus we are learning about integration by parts, integration through trigonometric identities, and integration by partial fractions. During class we managed to convince the professor to cancel the lecture on Thursday before Thanksgiving.  That evening I went to my my Large Galileo Meeting...well I tried to.  When I got to the meeting room, there was no one there. I checked my e-mail and found out that they had canceled the meeting because there was a review night for the Freshman engineering classes.  Since I'm not in the engineering class, I didn't know that there was a review session.  From there I went to my dorm where my roommate and I went on a cleaning binge.  We spent about an hour and a half putting away Halloween decorations, taking out trash, straightening up stuff, and generally just making our room look nice.  I bet it might last a whole week!

On Wednesday I started out in the morning with my small Galileo class. During the class we started to work on our ePortfolios, which are personal websites meant to act as a sort of online resume.  After Galileo I went to my Physics lecture. From there I went right to my Physics Lab where I had a lab on rotational momentum. Like last week, this was another short lab.  It only took about an hour, where most others have taken about two. That night I went to see a foreign film for my World Regions class. The film we watched was Ip Man, which focuses on the life on Ip Man, a kung-fu grandmaster, and his struggle against the occupying Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War.  This was actually kind of a coincidence because I had watched that movie on Netflix over the weekend.

Now today was nowhere near as interesting as the past two days.  First off, I didn't have any classes in the morning, so I slept in until 3:00 pm.  Then I went to my Calculus 1206 lecture where we practiced taking integrals. After the lecture I worked on my physics homework.  Then I got some dinner, watched a few episodes of Star Trek on Netflix, and wrote this post.

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while.  Its starting to get very busy here, but I going to try to keep posting every day.  See you tomorrow!

Monday-I almost forgot to post!

Happy Halloween!  Its been a quiet Halloween here, most of the partying and stuff actually took place over the weekend, so, except for people wearing costumes to class, there's actually not much Halloween related activity going on now. There was a group of ninjas from the Galileo program that were going over to the Hypatia dorm as I was coming back from my World Regions class, though.  Apparently, they had been ambushing Galileo members as they got out of the elevators!

Speaking of World Regions, the Plaid Avenger showed up to my lecture tonight.  He passed out Plaid Avenger comic books.  If you don't know who the Plaid Avenger is you can check out his website here.

Thats it for tonight, see you tomorrow!