Busy, Busy, Busy
What’s been going on? Quite a bit. Let me start where I left off. Grades are all in, and I got all As, but it was close in a few classes. Im back to class now, and those are going alright, but more on that later.
Last time I updated this was just a few hours before I had my wisdom teeth pulled. That went alright. Although, if you had asked me at the time, I would have said otherwise. The procedure took about 20 minutes, and I spent the next week recovering. The first day after the surgery I was alright, second night things started getting to me. There were only two things that really bugged me with it. The main one being eating. It was challenging for me, I took nearly an hour to eat dinner after the surgery, and that was only mashed potatoes. Right after the surgery I attempted to eat a milkshake, so I could take the pills that I had. That was interesting. My mouth was completely numb, so I ended up over the sink in the bathroom so I could use the mirror to help get the spoon to my mouth, and have the sink there to catch everything that didnt make it (which was the majority of it). The other problem with eating was that my recovery went right through Christmas, which means that eating all of that great food wasnt all that pleasant. I realized about 3 days after the surgery, when I really started getting annoyed with how I felt, that if I got out and did some thing that I felt a lot better.
So, what all happened for Christmas? Nothing out of the ordinary. I got some nice stuff including a calendar, book, DVD, blanket and Chia pet, which were all Garfield in some way. The Garfield blanket was homemade, and has gotten quite a bit of use here. I also got a Purdue duffle bag and polo shirt. My big gift this year was tickets to see Mama Mia. The music, dancing and choreography for the play were great, but there were two characters, with incredibly high pitched voices, that really drove me crazy while I was watching it. That kind of ruined the whole thing for me.
After Christmas I went for a sort of interview at the place where Ill be interning this summer. I ended up working there for my last week of Christmas break. I enjoyed that a lot more than working at Jewel, and its work in what are known as controls which relates very closely to my major. The company designs the electronic systems that control large machines, such as a product assembly line. The place is about 45 minutes from home for me, which caused some problems because we got a lot of snow one evening. I ended up staying at the Holiday Inn, in town that night. That wouldnt have been so bad, except that the only thing that I could do was watch TV, and the only thing on was a Purdue basketball game which wouldnt come in on my TV.
We had a new years party, well more of a Purdue football party. Purdue played in the Sun Bowl for the third time in four years. We had a few people over for that. I had my computer set up for the rolling instant replay. Thats quite convenient, you can watch one play on TV, and then look at the computer monitor for the replay just as the play is over. As a by product, you can usually get some really nice pictures of whats on TV, which I did.
Well, that sums up my break. I move back here the Saturday before classes began, into my single room. Since my roommate left for co-op, I dont have a roommate right now. Classes started that Monday, with a 7:30 am lab. Fortunately Im a TA for that class, so I really didnt have to do too much thinking for it.
Overall my classes are quite interesting. I had 19 credit hours, but I was able to get that down to 16 by testing out of my C++ course. Now Ive got three ECET courses with labs and an Mechanical Engineering Technology course in hydraulics. Ive got ECET courses in linear circuits, digital signal processing and a projects course. This semesters project consists of creating a robotic mouse that removes metal from a black oval track on the floor. Our complete problem and solution proposal was just completed tonight. Now the real fun begins, we have to build all of the individual parts and get them to work together. For this course we also have to figure out what we want to do for our senior project and put together a similar proposal for that.
Not much has happened outside of class, Ive been really busy mainly with that project course. Also, Im in a mode right now where I try to get homework done as far ahead of time as possible, which doesnt seem to have any advantages, since theres still always something to do. I though that it might leave me some free time, oh well. My parents did come down to visit last weekend. They went to the womens basketball game, but that really wasnt the main reason that they came down here. My dad finally got his new car, and he needed an excuse to drive it fast. He was even nice enough to let me drive it over to dinner, which I took the long way to so that I could test out the car a little. Im quite satisfied with it, its nice and quick.
Well, that should bring you up to date. Now that the proposal is finally done for my projects course I hope to have a little more time available to work on non class related stuff, like this. Keep checking back to see if that happens.
One Response to “Busy, Busy, Busy”
Mom - February 15th, 2005
You were the reason for coming down, Matt. And, believe it or not, the car was only second to seeing you for your dad, too. We enjoyed our day. Any cookies left?
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