Anywho. Phone antics aside.

Howdy, all!

It's been a while, so here's what I've been up to. On MLK day, last Monday I went on a ski trip with some friends to a nearby 'mountain.' It's in quotes because it wasn't that big. At all. Anyway, I decided to go snowboarding! Which, normally, would be a poor choice. At best, I can get down a green circle without flling. Note, at best. So, me and a girl down the hall decided to go snowboarding in the morning, thens witch to skis in the afternoon. After many a fall, we reached lunchtime, and switched to skis with the rest of the group, where we proceeded to burn up the 'mountain' with our skillz. (Note the 'z.' We were that awesome.) So, it was a fun trip.

Classes continue to go well. No problems, no overstressing.. it's been pretty good so far. I already have a midterm for programming this week, however, but I think I'm pretty solidly prepared for that. However, more approach in the coming weeks... so I'll have to be ready. I think I'll be good though. Despite putting more effort into studying concepts and such this semester, I'm finding I've had more free time than usual. Maybe it's subjective. I have no idea.

I watched the Matrix last night with friends. Half of them hadn't seen it. It was HILARIOUS. Especially when they wondered why Neo doesn't just pretend gravity doesn't exist and fly around to escape the agents, then actually does so right before the credits. Funny Stuff. And still a great movie, though it was fun seeing the old computers and technology.

See you all hopefully soon!

Testing... sending this post from my phone! maybe i'll at least remember to use this more often so you guys get more frequent updates. ciao for now!

1st Week: COMPLETE

Well, I got through it. One full week of classes, right up to a nice, 3-day weekend. (I get Monday off :D )

It's been.. interesting. Math has been easy (it's been pretty much review) so I haven't had much trouble so far with that. Physics has been... difficult. It's a lot of formulas, and lectures don't really explain them all that well. So, I spent a coupla hours reading through chapter 1, just to try and make sense of the piles of numbers thrown at my face. It worked out. But next lecture is on Chapter 3. So I can keep working it out tomorrow to catch fully back up. And then there's programming, which surprisingly, has been pretty fun. It's nice and applied. If it doesn't work, there's a reason. THere's no vague concepts or formulas. It's nice for things to actually make sense for once.

ROTC opened up this week as well with... nothing special to report. I have my flight, I'm still doing color guard and drill team... well, I guess there's one new thing besides my job assisting one of the POC. There's a group inside the wing call Arnold Air Society which is kinda like a service group of ROTC people which I'm going to go through this year. This whole semester is the application process for it. Should be interesting.

Intermediate Swimming is still fun, and I'm glad for the extra exercise and excuse to go swimming. (Oh, and mom. The goggles you sent me? I went to pull them on IMMEDIATELY after opening the box, and the strap snapped.) So, I ordered some off of Amazon which should hopefully be nice (They came reccomended pretty nicely off of a few review sites)

I haven't had too much truly "free" time so far either. I've had hours here and there which I've wasted pretty solidly skimming through the internet or hanging with friends, so I'm quite behind on my Christmas books, and I've played maybe 2 or three hours of video games. (That's weird for me. Well, not since I got to college.)

But! It's still all fun, even if my free time is now spent in drastically different ways than at home.

I'm also having fun here debating one of the guys on my hall about politics. I'm not particularly well versed in.. anything, but my friend is a Political Science major who's a Democrat. It's fun to actually talk some things over with him, and get some different points of view. Just yesterday, I got into a mini-debate over taxes/corporations and such and I actually flustered him to the point where he left to go walk by himself for a while. Not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. But gosh darn it, I'll debate him until everything makes sense! (Otherwise known as... forever.)

And there we go. Another blog post done. See y'all next time!

First weekend of the new semester

Well, I'm a few classes in now. A few. We'll see how it works out... but I think I'll be ok. There's going to be a LOT of numbers flying around this semester though. Between Math, Physics, and Programming soon I'm going to start seeing things like the Matrix.

"I... I can see the code! I must be the One!" *levitates Mountain Dew out of fridge and continues studying*

So yeah. Should be interesting.

And speaking of interesting, I watched the movie "Watchmen" tonight. First off, I'll say that it is certainly not meant for younger viewers. Blood, violence, a bit of swearing... and two sex scenes that went on a bit longer than was enitrely necessary. We actually started laughing during the second one because of hwo ridiculous it was, and because of the song playing during it. You'll probably recognize it from Shrek, if nothing else.

Anyway, cut through that and you have a movie about a dystopian alternate future. After WW2, people started dealing with crime by dressing up in masks and becoming vigilantes. Like superheroes, but without the powers. This drastically changed how the future formed and changed public policy along with it. Notable examples are Richard Nixon being elected to three terms in office, and an actual bill being passed banning masked heroes and vigilantiism. Then, at a nuclear test center, a scientist got involved in a nuclear accident and somehow became the world's first actual "Super" hero, with real powers, and he REALLY screwed things up, becoming the lynchpin of US defense strategy and winning the Vietnam War... and such. I won't ruin the movie for you. Anyway, the movie essentially tells the stories of a few of these heroes lives, intertwining some very deep questions about morality and what is "right" and "wrong" throughout, leading up to a final confrontation which ultimately ends in what is seemingly a bad way. I won't tell you what happened but... ask yourself this. If you could bring about World Peace by blowing up New York City, would you do it?

It was good. I'm also going to bring up that this movie was written as a graphic novel (read: book length comic book with considerably more plot and design put into it) first, and like all book to movie translations, the book itself was better. And much less gory and offensive. I've heard of the book actually being read in English classes. Neat, huh?

Anyway, classes restart Monday, and ROTC slowly chugs up to full speed thereafter. We missed our first ROTC meeting last Thursday because of the snow, so this coming week is going to be a bit longer... (I'll be doing ROTC from 230-700) I've also found out that I'll be doing a tad bit of extra work this semester, working as a PO (Project Officer) to assists one of the Cadet officers in their wing with their duties. It won't be a lot of extra work but it should be helpful to see how some of the stuff we do comes into being.

And that's all for tonight! (Or morning. It was a long movie, and we talked for quite a while afterward...) See y'all later!

And a new day begins...

Well, here I am, back at college after a truly wonderful Christmas break. Family, friends, sleeping in, video games, reading... NOT doing homework and studying every night. Seeing Ben for the first time in, I dunno, forever. It was pretty fantastic... and now I'm back here. It's dreary. Physics confused me from five minutes into the class. And I just completed an paper for my programming class. Yes, a paper. On day 1. At least I'm ahead of the game. For now. Unfortunately I'm going to have to wait on my Physics books... which are coming cheap from Amazon but won't show up till the end of the week.

Also, in a bit better news, I had my first swimming class today. It's worth a credit, and... I'm am SO freaking tired. It was great.