I've just about finished school.  Only two weeks left.  I never thought I'd ever see the light at the end of the tunnel.  It's been a long journey since June of 2000 when I graduated high school.

I've been busy working for the United States Navy for almost a year and sadly, that job is coming to an end when I graduate.  I wish it could have lasted longer, but I'm not quite what they are looking for, so I have to move on.  That being said, I have an internship for three months up in Fort Belvoir that I should be starting at the beginning of June.  I'm not quite one-hundred percent sure what I will be doing exactly, but I will be doing something more along the lines of engineering instead of information technology, which is what I have been doing more of lately.

I'm still looking for a place to live up in that area, so we'll see how expensive it's going to be to work and live up there.

I've been swamped with homework and papers.  Right now I'm actually writing up a paper in regards to the cooperative I have been working at with the military and I can't find any applicable technical journals that deal with IT and Electrical Engineering Technology that would fit in with what I am doing at my job.  That and my senior project.  It's actually a pretty neat project except for the fact that I can't really remember how to program micro-controllers and the particular chip that I am working with I have never touched before.  So I'm just a little stressed out.

Off to work on another paper and try to see if I can get this take-home quiz done in a couple minutes.  Shouldn't be too hard.  Smith charts are actually kind of fun.

Today was the first day of classes!  All in all, a fulfilling day.  Did lots and accomplished more.  I had three classes today, and they look to be good ones.

First off, I'm taking Programmable Logic Controls.  I love playing with PLCs, but I'm horrible at describing what they do. Class started out at 9 this morning and lasted about an hour.  I kind of wish that the really nerdy guy that sat in the front would shut up and let the professor teach.  Isn't that his job?

Speaking of jobs, I went into work after that for about four hours.  Built up a machine for a user except that I can't deliver it to them without this particular form.  I left before the person was supposed to report to the command, so I'm not so sure about the status of that.  Hopefully they got their machine!

After that, I went to my Fascism in Europe class.  I really don't need to be taking a history class since I've taken all my mandatory history prerequisites before, but I needed something to bump me up to full time and that caught my eye.

Lastly, I had my Christianity class.  Now this class, I had been looking forward to all summer long.  Professor Ahktar, whom I studied Islam under, is one of my favorite professors because of how he views how class should be taught.  Also he is the most objective teacher I have ever met.  I wish the rest of my professors were as professional as he is.

Looks like its going to be a good semester!

Today was an awesome day.  My very good friend Benjamin invited me and a few other friends of his to go for an all day trip on his ship.

Did I mention that his ship is an US Destroyer?  Must have slipped my mind.  Anyways, I had to work today as well this morning.  Thankfully my boss said that I could go.  So, after installing Office XP on the few machines that needed the installation done still, I drove over to Pier 6 where the U.S.S. Barry is docked.  Ben said that we should all get there around 0830, and thankfully I had saw a couple of his other friends there and we all walked down to the pier together.  We eventually left the pier around 1015ish and we sailed on out to the Atlantic.   It was so beautiful and we couldn't have had a better day for this.

Unfortunately, Ben had watch for all but two hours of the trip, so we didn't get to see him all that much.  However, the bunch of us took it upon ourselves to go exploring throughout the whole ship.  At least where we were allowed to.  From what I overheard, we went about 30 miles out into the ocean.  You could see for miles and miles and not see any land on the horizon.  The captain also did some pretty neat maneuvers with the ship, doing some high speed turns where the boat tipped over pretty far and it was hard to stand, going around 32 knots an hour (about 37 miles an hour) and going from that to around 15 knots in reverse extremely quickly.  We just got back, and I am wiped out.  I definitely don't see how people can do that for 6 months straight, but I guess that's ultimately why I decided to get out of the Navy.

I promise to get some pictures up as soon as I get them from Ben's friends. (I still need to get a camera.  I'm actually leaning towards getting a Sony α-100.)

Last night I went to the ER for some pain in my chest and because my left arm had gone numb. It started around 5:30 and I eventually had gone to the hospital around 9:30.  My friends Thomas and his girlfriend Julia were kind enough to go with me and wait around while the doctor looked at me.

I had never been to the emergency room before, so I was a bit worried.  By the time we three had gotten there, the pain had really become unbearable and being unable to breath quite right was making me tired.  So they had taken me back for an EKG.  Turns out that was fine.  Pretty much all of my vitals were ok, but they still wanted a doctor to look at me so they took me back to a bed where I lay there for six hours.  During that time, I had to have a couple chest x-rays done and some blood drawn, as well as stint for a possible IV drip put in.  I was honestly really scared that I was having some sort of heart problem, but I had balked at going sooner because I had had this problem before (in a much lesser degree of pain) and it turned out to be a spat of gas.  I had thought that perhaps this might have been gas as well, but I did not want to take any chances with that.  The doctor was really nice and made me feel as comfortable as the situation warranted.

Turns out that I did have a huge pocket of air (gas) in my intestines. (I figured as much.)  Of course, I didn't find out until 3:00 AM where I had been passed out in the hospital bed for a good 2 hours before hand.  I don't think I really had been any more worried about myself before last night.  I'm just really glad it turned out to be that and not something very serious like actual heart disease.

Thomas, Julia and I were going to go to IHOP after I got released from the hospital, but as soon as I got into her van, I promptly got very tired and decided that it would be best if I just went back home and got some sleep.  All in all, it was a very interesting experience.  Definitely one I would not like to repeat anytime soon.

So summer is almost upon us, even though it still feels like winter.  I've been very busy writing up essays and doing calculus homework.  Speaking of which, I've been working on a rather long essay for my Islam class about "Is the Quran Anti-semitic?".  At first, I decided that, no, it wasn't since we had talked about in class a few things that made it look quite positively on Jews.  However, the more I researched, the more I was troubled by what the Quran says about Jews.  Note, this does not mean that Muslims are given a religious mandate to kill Jews because it explicitly does not say that in the Quran's texts.  Also, I have another essay due for my Judaism class that is due this Thursday.  I just have to give an outline about Reform Judaism and mention certain qualities about it that make it different from the other sects of Judaism.  Calculus is going decently, although I could always be doing better on tests.  Just need to study my butt off for the exam. Read the rest of this entry »

So, my broski Time gave me an old Apple Blue & White G3 with Debian on it back around New Years Eve.  Unfortunately, when I first bought a USB keyboard for it, it didn't work.  So I ended up getting a new keyboard and it worked!  Now, I asked for some ideas of what I should do with it since I am unable to connect to the internet at the same time with my Thinkpad T43 and the G3.  Well, shade suggested that I make the box into a router. So that's what I decided to do.  I'm wanting to put more RAM in to the G3 because it's just not that peppy with only 64 MB.  My buddy Thomas gave me a couple sticks of 256MB and a stick of 128MB.  Which didn't work. Read the rest of this entry »

So, I'm sure all the people who read my blog know that I have been having immense problems with calculus.  I've failed it three times at ODU.  And I'm on my last leg when it comes to the class, which is why I am taking it at Tidewater Community College.   I've been driving over to Virginia Beach from my apartment for the past seven weeks now.  It's a pretty ho-hum drive on the Interstate for the most part, except people down here drive really crappy.  Scares the bejesus out of me sometimes.  Anyways, so I've been driving out there Monday through Thursday of each week, learning all sorts of calculus principles and ideas.

On my first test, I scored a D which wasn't great, but higher than any grade I received while at ODU.  I was pretty happy about it, but I do need at least a C to have it count for anything.  So I've been working my butt off studying, asking questions in class, participating when the instructor asks questions, and the like.  Well, it's paying off too since I got a B on my last test that I just did two Thursdays ago.  Plus, I was able to get back 3 extra points and raise my grade to an A.  I'd have to say that's quite the improvement, but there's still a long way to go and I'm not just going to give up either.

I'll discuss my other classes in a later post soon.  I really should be updating this more often, shouldn't I?

Ok, so I didn't do as good as I thought I did on the test.  That being said, I did pass and I did get all the major concepts.  There were a few errors I made here and there that can and are attributed to stupid mistakes that I made.  When it's all said and done, getting, at least, thirty points higher on this test than on any test I took at ODU has to say something about a) finally getting the material, b) understanding the material, and c) that ODU isn't the best place to learn math for someone with my way of learning things.  Things can only go up from here, and they will.  I'm going to be talking to my friend Thomas about scheduling definite times to actually work and study calculus.  I'll get an A in this class, just you all wait and see!

Although I didn't do great, I am still in a very good mood about all this.

I'll find out what my grade is on the calculus test in just over an hour. Wish me luck.  I'm definitely very nervous about what my grade might be.  That being said, I feel a lot more confident about what I am learning this semester and I'm actually picking up the ideas really easily.  I have to say that this teacher is the best at explaining stuff.

Ok, so it's been a while since I've posted last. I'm sorry, but life has just been getting out of hand lately.  So much to tell, so little space to do it in.

So let's go back to last semester, I didn't do so hot.  In fact, I did poorly.  I got a F (in calculus), a D and two C+'s.  Definitely something not to be proud of.  That being said and done, I've put it behind me and I'm focusing on this semester, as I should be.  I decided to change my minor to Philosophy with an emphasis on Religious Studies.  So that means I am taking Islam, Judaism, and Japanese Philosophy & Religion.  (As well as calculus yet again, but I am taking it at the "local" community college.)  So far, it looks like my Islam class is actually going to be the most interesting out of the three religion classes.  The teacher isn't way out there and he actually teaches the material and I feel like I am always learning something.  The same can't be said about my two other classes though.  With calculus, I finally think I am making headway with this.  I actually understand what I am doing, plus the teacher is extremely helpful and he knows what he is doing.  Speaking of which, I had my first test today, I think I did decently, but we'll see when I get the test back. Read the rest of this entry »