Snow on the horizon?

That’s right, rumor has it there’s a winter storm set to hit the area on Saturday!  On the radio, I heard a 50% chance of 6″ or more!  It’s a shame, there would have been a lot of relieved college students if the storm had hit Friday and disrupted finals.  Still could be a fun weekend though — Snow makes winter far more enjoyable.

So even though it’s finals week, I wanted to stop by work for a little while today, to catch up with my mentor and talk about next steps.  As it turned out, I ended up being there all afternoon like usual, and not getting home until 6:00.  It just means I didn’t get any time to work this afternoon, but I think I should still be alright.  My math final is due tomorrow by the end of the afternoon, so I’ll have all day to get it done.  I’ve actually managed to do 3 out of 5 problems without too much difficulty!  The last two will be tougher though, methinks…

It hasn’t been too stressful of a week.  Monday night was that A Capella concert I mentioned, which was really great.  This time it was all UMBC groups, which includes:  The Mama’s Boys (all-male group), The Stilettos (all-female group), and The Cleftomaniacs (mixed group).  The Mama’s Boys did their usual Christmas repertoire, which includes a few non-traditional jingles.

Then Tuesday morning a group of us went up to Catonsville for lunch.  There’s a great sandwich shop (Taneytown Deli) there that we discovered last year.  The sandwiches aren’t anything fancy, but they’re delicious (and often HUGE).  Then after that I hurried back to campus to head to the Physics Dept. Christmas party for dessert.  I was sitting and talking with a friend of mine, then next thing I knew we’d been joined by the department chair, a former dean, and a professor.  I tried to keep conversation going but unfortunately I never thought to mention my name!  Oops.  Oh well.  I did find out that a former professor *may* have some past experience in Medical Physics, which I’ve been considering recently.  My to-do list now includes chatting him up about it sometime.

I can make it through my last final.

Studying for your last final is the hardest thing….especially when you have already gone through three finals already….especially when your roommates are done with their finals for the week and are distressing with guitar hero….especially when you are as tired as I am…..especially when it is 8:47 pm and you’re sitting next to your bed and all you feel like doing is giving up and going to bed. Oh my …… but gotta keep pushing ….turn on some music…..you don’t want to regret it later ……only 13 more hours to go…….seven of which will be sleep so …..it’s just six more hours …..gotta keep going…..gotta keep going ……..ok……ok.

Thursday’s my lucky day!

Ah Thursday still despises me!! Too many things. I’m sad that I think I missed a review session with my math teacher yesterday in the class I’m doing poorly in On the plus side, my teacher took my portfolio despite my tardiness I got a 75, and considering how well I’m doing in the class, I only need an 80% on the final for an A On the midterm, I got a 92, so hopefully I can get within range to bring up my GPA. I studied in a group for 3 hours yesterday and I’m very proud of my initiative!!

I’m worried because I have so much to do today. My teacher might have that review in half hour, my friend might be coming over to study but she was having car trouble, I’m supposed to be seeing my math teacher at noon, and my Greek Final is at 1:00!! I studied the last chapter and a map yesterday, but there’s so much more!! I’m debating whether to get a delicious coffee (from you know where!) to help me

It was sad my suite mates were being so annoying last night. I might not be living on campus next semester but I might be able to put up with it considering how flexible my schedule is I just want to keep housing to be in the run-in for housing on the quiet floor. I think people who have housed before have first dibs before incoming freshmen. The resident staff hasn’t helped me much although we do have a contract with my suite mates that if they continue to violate the quiet hours (as they have on so many occasions during 24 hours quiet hours for exams in the middle of the night!!!) I just want so badly to disturb them now!!!! They sleep all day and stay up all night. No fair. Seriously, I’m going home to study and get sleep because I can not afford to fail this math final!!! My poor second room mate who got stuck with all of us.

And Friday I still have one serious paper due in a class I’m doing well in and love and then I have my SCI Final which I’ve studied a lot for, maybe I should’ve done the study group today instead Poor judgment on my part

Three hours to render!

Two nights ago, I went to sleep around 4 am and didn’t get enough sleep.  Last night, I stayed up all night texturing and lighting my 3D final, and now I’m pulling an all-nighter again!  I am falling apart.  I should really scale my projects down a bit so this stops happening.

Regardless, I’m really happy with how this is turning out.  It’s just a question of whether or not it will finish rendering in time for my 8am final!  I’m sitting here in the animation lab (a spiffy room you need to swipe your red card to gain access to) with my woman and like 10 other students, all disregarding sleep for the sake of making some cool projects.  And my girlfriend is playing Restaurant City.  haha.

Once this is done and I upload it to Vimeo, I’ll stick the links up on here to this final project as well as the last animation project (Rikki n’ Fred) I did a few weeks ago.

After rendering, compositing and burning to a DVD, I plan to eat one of (if not THE) final Chic Fil A breakfasts of the Fall 2009 semester (since it’s just outside the Engineering Building we’re in).  Then we’ll go through the projects and work through the apparent turmoil all the students are expecting from having finals overlapping (someone messed something up!).  THEN, I’m going to shower, have lunch with the UMBC Orthodox Christian Fellowship Advisor to see what their club is all about (I had never heard of Orthodox Christianity before, but now my interest has been sparked and I wanna check it out), then SLEEP!!!!!!

Hopefully, my girlfriend and I are going to take the light rail to the Walters Art Gallery, and then Hunt Valley for Noodles n’ Company and a movie on Friday as a nice break to the chaos that is finals week.  Almost through with this semester!

finals weeeeeek

it’s that time again- finals week! yayyy….

[[normally that yay would be totally sarcastic, but as a senior i'm excited to be transitioning into my last semester!]]

anyways, today was reading day- it occurs the day after the last day of classes and is a full day where no finals are scheduled. it’s meant to give students time between the end of classes and finals to study. some people use it to studay- others use it to relax and hang with friends and do whatever. for the first time in my 3.5 years here at umbc, i actually studied today! i have 2 exams and a paper due on thursday, a final on friday, and a final and a paper due on tuesday, so i really needed the time to study for my thursday finals.

also, during finals week the student government association runs stress free zone. it’s basically a place in the commons (our student union) where any student can go to take a break from the stresses of finals. there’s free food, games, and fun things to do [[this year's lineup includes manicures, crafts, and a bunch of other cheesy things that wwe can do to relax]]. i was in charge of this event for the past two semesters, and while it definitely benefits the students, i must say im a bit glad not to have been responsible for planning it this semester i am volunteering though- i’ll be there tomorrow and one day next week to help hand out giveaways, restock items, and just make sure everything is running smoothly.

anyways, i’m heading back to studying [[i know it's 12:38am- that's what finals week will do to you!]]

Four More Finals

Hey everyone,

Back to studying! Or you’re probably procrastinating…it’s so hard not to! Today I studied with a couple of my friends for our greek history exam thursday– eeek. I also have a science exam on friday afternoon, yuck! Way to start the weekend. and not to mention one serious annotated bibliography due friday afternoon at 12:30 sharp before this sci exam. it’s pretty ugly and I should know better by now that I will thank myself if I do the bulk of my work ahead of time and slide through the final hours before these grand events.

I finally went to Starbucks today! I got my first try on Monday after my last philosophy class let out early. My professor actually talked to me before I left which was sweet! I’m gonna miss that class, it was great. Today I got a cappuccino, which was deliciously energizing. The java chip frap I got the day before was sweeter, if you’re interested Another great thing I did today humorously after the cup of coffee, was hit the RAC for the first time ever! It was great, I stayed longer than I thought I would hitting the treadmill, very stress relieving. I was trying hard to manage my time going early so I could study, but finding the initiative to study is still hard. I’ve organized some study groups for my exams, which I should want to properly prepare for. I also really want to do well on my annotated bibliography for gender studies. It’s probably my favorite class and all my friends say I should finally declare it my major already. I’m a first semester freshman!! haha.

I have to say too that I’m nervous about a portion of my sci class. I turned in this porfolio online that is apparently ten percent of our grade late :/ Should I email my teacher? I’m nervous. I’ll tell you something though, I didn’t have it done because of studying for math, lacking sleep, and having lots of shoulder and back pain. Does it make sense that all those things sort of caused each other to happen somehow? While it is ten percent, I’ve done everything else in that class, virtually perfectly, all A’s, will I get a B because of this one instance? That’s a downer I also have to do really well on my math exam which thank goodness is tuesday and the last thing I have to worry about, all on it’s own, one last chance :/ I’ll probably have a lovely C in that class, but it’s ok I just want credit and to do well. I’ve probably been trying harder in that class than anything else and it’s my lowest grade, does that happen sometimes??

Yes stressful, indeed. I’m really looking forward to this weekend because I get to spend time with my boyfriend and also visit a friend I haven’t seen in forever because she goes to college in Wisconsin. I think it’s going to be a really nice weekend if I could only  get through this week. I also have to study for my math final, get in that study group, see my teacher thursday before my history exam, and prepare for the final as much as possible.

I think something that could motivate us all right now would be the idea of attaining a job well done, hard work paying off for the desired result. I’ve experienced from lack of time spent on a paper, not doing as well as I’d hoped, and just plainly not turning things in on time the regret of NOT doing a job well done. So let’s try to get a move on, shall we?

Finals, finally.

It’s finally finals week. It’s been an intense semester, but I’ve loved every minute of it. Luckily this week I don’t have any finals. It’s all papers for me. I’ve finished 2 exams and 2 papers. I’ve only got one paper left to write and another to edit, then I’m home! I am definitely going to miss it here for the 5 weeks I’m home, but I am extremely excited to take a break. Granted, I’ll be working 50 hours a week over break, so it’s not exactly going to be the most relaxing vacation, but it is nice not to have homework to do all the time. I will miss living with my suitemates. I adore them and we have so much fun together. We’re actually going to watch Love Actually tonight to get in the Christmas spirit. Last night we went to Midnight Breakfast, which was a blast. Breakfast is my favorite meal and I always love the events on campus. Today was actually a surprisingly busy day, because I had more of the reading day events. I had brunch with the Humanities Scholars, then went to a Social Work Student Association potluck. Now I’m just catching up on a little television before I finish that final paper! So close! Everyone enjoy your winter break! I’ll see you all next semester!

Study Day

Classes are finally over and today is study day! I’m really, really stressing to get my intro to 3d final done by 8am on Thursday morning. Who knew modeling a Christmas tree would be so difficult? So far I’ve set up the walls, a door, an ornate doorknob, stairs, a coocoo clock, five picture frames, a ceiling fan, candles and the base of the Christmas tree. Once it’s done, I’ve gotta add ornaments and lights, then a few presents around it. Then on to texturing and lighting! Think I can get all that done today??

Midnight Breakfast ……yummmmm…

Every semester, either spring or fall the Resident Student Association has this program called Midnight Breakfast in the Fall and Midnight dessert in the Spring.So yesterday at midnight, or should i say this morning at 12am, my roommates and I went to midnight breakfast. Foood ….. was good. I mean it was actually like a big breakfast. And they had these really cool yellow T- shirts and challenges to win a one. It was loud with good music and at some point people started dancing together. ….It was really fun. Me and my roommates joined for a while…but we couldn’t keep up we were the only three people who didn’t understand the routine very well. It was really cool tho…. I mean I personally prefer Midnight Dessert but this was really good too. The dining hall looks like a different place. It’s been a while since I’ve been there and they seem to have renovated so much stuff. It looks really cool now.

Especially with finals coming up it was definitely worth it to study and work on my project and then get to go to midnight breakfast and relieve a bit of stress with laughter. It was nice.

GOOD LUCK on Finals, mine are all between Thursday 1pm and Friday 1pm……oh Man! wish me luck.

Coming up on the home stretch…

Well, even though its the week before finals, I’m actually not very swamped with work at the moment.  Today I’ll be turning in my final “portfolio” for English, then I’m completely done with that class.  I thought I would be receiving a take-home math exam last Wednesday, but he still hasn’t e-mailed it to us.  I’m guessing we’ll get it in class today.  So then I’ll just have that to work on and a physics exam to study for next Monday.

Assuming I’m still feeling okay work-wise, there’s an a cappella show tonight, so I think I might try to check it out.  Then tomorrow (“reading day”) is the Physics Dept. end-of-semester party, which ought to be fun.  The undergraduate Society of Physics Students provides pizza, and its a good chance to hang out and chat with professors.   I’m always amazed by how many events and fun activities tend to spring up around/during Finals Week.  The Student Events Board even hosts the Stress-Free Zone every semester, where they have food, games, and activities to take your mind off finals.  (They also have free t-shirts, which will definitely draw me in)