My first week of fall semester has ended, and so ends the first “real” week of the college experience, I suppose. Having done the summer semester, I’m sort of past all the hype now. None of “omg I’m a college kid!” or “can’t believe I’m moving away,” though that doesn’t make it any less fun. I am here relaxing in my dorm – on one of the few chances I’ll get, that’s what they tell me.

As for my schedule of the classes I’m taking….

Weekly Calendar

And there it is, 19 hours in all it’s glory. English I is nothing but a nuisance, I should have tested out of it. I can’t imagine HPS1040 will be too fun either. Though there are some easy extra credit opportunties, such as take a fitness class at the CRC, attend some safefy seminars, and the like. We can also get our blood taken and analyzed but I just have a God-awful fear of needles. Psychology is fairly interesting…for whatever portions I’m awake for. Chem1310, general chemistry, or “Gen Chem”, is just a lot of work. CS1372 is the only tough class so far though. The lectures just sort of jumped right into the middle of it. Oh, and if you’ll take a look at what math I’m in, it is 2401, or Calc III, which means that I did in fact successfully test out of Calc II, and I passed the placement exam with a 97% =D. My calc III professor has an awful accent though, as does the TA. It’s all good though, I’m pretty good at math = ). And taking my self taught experience of calc II as a gauge of my abilities, I’m going to try to teach myself differential equations as well. Now unfortunately, 19 hours only allows so much leeway in the planning of classes. I did, however, manage to pack it all into Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Good news: I have tons of free time on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as weekend. Bad news: I have to get up at 7 on MWF, and pretty much be in class all day. Outside of class, I’m mostly working out at the CRC, and finding out how I can get more involved on campus. I’ve recently turned in applications to be a tutor, and I’m looking into to apply to be part of the freshman student government, taking part in intramurals/club sports (wushu and gymnastics look pretty cool).

Now, I’m going to a party. Cheers.

Peace and love, Ben out.

I should be getting an A in computer science, but as for Econ, looks like I’m stuck with a B. Oh how quickly my thoughts of a 4.0 went away. Clearly senioritis has persisted, and not only that, gotten the best of me. I’ll admit it was wholly my fault (if but a little of Economics’s for being such a dull class). Always fell asleep, didn’t pay attention, nor read the text for that matter. So either read or pay attention = key to success. It’s not high school anymore.

So even though summer semester is over, I’m still not completely out yet. I’ve a placement exam in Calculus II, of which I haven’t been exactly studiously preparing myself for, not on top of two other classes. So I must strive to learn it all in…2 weeks. I’ve actually just finish watching the last lecture of MIT’s Open Course Ware series on Linear Algebra, essentially the core of Georgia Tech’s Calc II. I suppose I’ll go through the book, doing the problems and such, and I’ll have to find time to review series and learn whatever Simpson’s Rule is (oddly enough, not at all related to the family of a very famous cartoon sitcom). Hopefully this last effort will be enough, because I don’t exactly want to take Calc II. (I heard it’s brutal/really lame). If my placement exam is a success, I’ll enroll in Calc III, and I’ll try to teach myself Differential Equations during the semester. Should be fun.

Anyhoo, seeing as how there’s no school for 2 weeks, this thing probably wont get updated very often, but I’ll do my best.

Peace and love, Ben out.

My dissertation’s going to start with the word “dude”. Just putting that out there.

I went to a karaoke this weekend. And yours truly sang “Twilight Zone” by Golden Earring and “Smooth” by Santana featuring Rob Thomas. Now I don’t *claim* to be a good singer, but I daresay my applause was the loudest. =P I jest, I most likely murdered the songs. That’s not the story though. Some drunk man came up to me after my first song and said to me “now son, I can’t stand Georgia Tech (I was wearing a Tech shirt), because I’m a Georgia fan, but you did reaall good up there, and I’ll tell ya, if it weren’t for smart people like you going to Tech, this country would be in some deep ****”. Now there’s nothing against Georgia fans, because that guy made my night. Just thought I’d share this funny ditty with y’all. =)

Oh my, just one more week of summer semester. Well, technically, there’s one day of finals next week, but saying there’s only one more week is much more satisfying. I’ve got just a quiz tomorrow, 2 exams Thursday, then a final for computer science next week. Then about 3 weeks off until the Fall semester begins. Pretty exciting huh?

Well for the quiz tomorrow, I’m still way behind on the material, procrastinating again. Better review some before bed, toodles.

Peace and love, Ben out.

Quite literally nothing. I’ve had to forgo my time at the gym to catch up on schoolwork. =\

7/14/09 -

Basketball. I’ll say this wasn’t one of my best days.

7/15/09 -

(See monday *major sigh*)

7/16/09 -

Bench 4×5

Standing press 4×5

Deadlift 4×5

Bicep curls 4×10

Assisted pull ups 4 sets to failure (I won’t say what these are because these numbers are pretty sad, haha.)

No squats because my legs have just been feeling sore for no reason, and I dind’t want to strain them.

Ok so, notes:

1. What a sad week for training. Though I suppose it’s not all bad. Hopefully the extra rest will allow me to perform better next week, which will be important, because I will be taking maxes of those lifts and others that I’m not doing. I’ll be taking maxes because next week ends this 5 week summer semester (whoo!), and it’s not really economical for me to travel back to campus just to use the facility. The maxes numbers will allow me to structure my workouts more. So that when I do come back during the fall, my workouts will follow specific sets and reps protocols, as opposed to this month of conditioning.

2. This pertains to the assisted pull ups. I found a machine in the upper levels of the CRC that loads plates for which to cancel out some of your own weight, making pull ups easier, hence the “assisted” pull ups. It’s actually in this little niche besides the track where I run and warm up, just that I’ve never paid any attention to it because I just prefer free weights more. But this method does replicate the pull up condition the closest, which is more important than my bias against machines.

I was supposed to go see the new Harry Potter today, but like I said, plans fell through. I’m not surprised at all by the mixed reviews. On one side of the spectrum is the people who know the book and wants the movie to portray it exactly. Apparently a large amount has been left out, including the battle scene at the end (sorry if I ruined it for you =P). And the people who haven’t read it for the most part report it as a good movie. I’ve personally read it – twice (though it has been a while), but I don’t expect it to be like the book exactly, especially since the last movie.

I want to bring up something cool I saw on TV today…well 2 something really cool, that I saw while watching Attack of the Show. The first is a tiger riding a horse. Go youtube it. The second is that they featured this website. The website provides you tools to build your own website, and it’s really user-friendly, and the basic package is completely free. Now this caught my attention because I’ve always wanted to manage a website, and because I think I have a lot of interesting things to talk about to all sorts of enthusiasts. I have a multitude of interests, and I like to try new things. A few of those interets have stayed that I love and now know a lot about, and even more things have stuck with me that I know or can do only on an elementary level. So all this information about how to do interesting (to those who find it so), horizon broadening, and sometimes trivial things, are just here, in my head, with nowhere to go, and I, for one, think it could make an enlightening collection to be fitted with a domain name.

Well, more on that later I guess.

Peace and love, Ben out.

First, rocked that computer science test, got a 92 =D. Class average was about 73 or something. I’ll let out a few breaths of relief. I suppose for 5 weeks, this could have been worse. Advice for this class? Definitely do your homework, it’s great practice. Unless you’re just a genius. The last homework was certainly a doozy, but I got it done in time nevertheless, scrambled and frantic. Guess what I’ll be doing as soon as I finish writing this? Yeah, the next homework, and it looks like a piece of work as well.

Had my second econ test today, and I regretfully say that I didn’t study – again. Even though it felt easier than the first, I won’t call it this time. So much of my effort goes into CS. I got home with nothing to do but study but I just didn’t want to. Guess that was my fault. =P

Hey how come everybody’s getting their AP scores but me? Lame. That’s alright though, I got news of which class I’m exempt from because Tech recieve scores ahead of time and automatically allots credits. So here’s what I know:

Calc BC = 5/5 (=D)

Us Gov = 4 or 5

(and Bio = 5, from last year)

Apparently I did not score high enough on English Lit or Spanish to recieve credit. The Spanish I won’t gripe about, I knew I wasn’t going to get a 4, but Lit? Come on! I took AP Lang last year and didn’t get a 4 either, and now I have to deal with 2 semesters of Tech English? This year’s test definitely felt like at least a “4″effort, and I’m just hoping there was a mistake. Either way, 11 AP tests in my high school career, and I got credit for less than half. I’m a horrible test taker. AP Fail.

I just thought I’d share some cool info from my Popular Science: some dude has built a water power jetpack. It’s so badass. I thought it wouldn’t be possible because there’s no way (yet) to manage the water’s mass and thrust to keep it stable in the air, so the dude worked around this by making the engine and water pump a separate mechanism, and link it to the jetpack via a heavy pressurized water hose. You can google or youtube it, it’s just too cool for school.

Bench 2X10, 2×5

Overhead press 4×5

Squat 4×10

Bent rows 4 x 10

Deadlift 4 x 10

Bicep curls 4 x 10

Note: I decreased weight so I could finish a 4×10 workout (at least for the most part, but I may have dropped too much, will increase next time)

Tuesday 7-7-09

Basketball game, rockin’ it.

Wednesday 7-8-09

More basketball, but no game, just nice relaxing shootout.

Thursday 7-9-09

Bench 4×5

Overhead press 8,7,6,5 (4 sets, decreasing reps by 1)

Squat 3 x 5, 1 x 1

Bent rows 4 x 5

Deadlift 4 x 5

Bicep curls 4 x 5

*Note: for this workout, I decreased reps, so I could go a little heavier. Very excititng news emerged from that: after going here everyday for 3 weeks, I’ve squatted 165 for 5, and I weight 155. And the 1 set of 1 rep was 225lb, it’s not much, but it’s nice to know I’m making improvements.

(Boy, I’m really bad about updating this on a regular basis, huh?)

Also, found out where I’ll be living my freshmen year: Towers hall. Now, I’ve never seen it, but I’ll just have to take people’s word for it, and the word is that Towers is indeed the worst residence hall. It’s on the East, it’s one of, if not the oldest residence halls on campus, and apparently could use some renovation. It does dissapoint a little, as I would have liked to be on West side, but I don’t foresee myself being in the dorms all that much. There’s so many places on campus where I can eat, sleep, and study, not to mention I’ll probably be so busy with the curriculum and extracurriculars that I shouldn’t be in my room often anyways.

By the way, here seems to be the breakdown of the two sides of campus:

West:

-Closer to CRC (my main reason for wanting to be on west

-The dorms are generally nicer and bigger, for being newer.

-Quieter

East:

-Closer to stadium and fraternities. (i.e. the party side, lol)

-Will be closer to most freshmen classes

-Closer to city environment.

And as far as I know, the dining halls don’t seem to be significantly different from each other, but note that I haven’t been to either.

Well, it’s about time to head to the computing building for my test. Workout log update by the way.

Peace and love, Ben out

Went to the CRC after classes to play basketball. I love this place, there’s almost always a game that I can join. Two hours of this is my workout today.

7-1-09

Again, went to the CRC to play basketball.

7-2-09

(I did lift today)

Bench 3×10, 1×5

Overhead Press 4×5

Squat 4×10

Bent rows 2×10, 1x 8, 1×6

Deadlift 4×10

Bicep curls 4×10

Stretch (My legs have been stiff all week, and I got to say, there’s nothing quite like a good stretch after a workout.)

*If the rep numbers look a little erratic, it’s only because I’m still experimenting with how much I should lift. Ideally, I want to do 4 sets of 10 reps for each movement, and it has to be heavy enough such that the last set is difficult or impossible.

**With my schedule and how many days I actually get to go to campus, I think my routine will be as follows: Weight training on Mondays and Thursdays, and basketball on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Rest for the weekend, and be prepared to bust it next week =D

***Just one last note, for the geeky school connotation that Georgia Tech has, you’ll see a lot of gym rats at the CRC. I saw a guy squatting with four 45-plates and two 10s on each side, that’s 445lbs! Holy ****! You can see the bar bending from the weight. And it wasn’t even his max, as he did multiple reps. I barely broke 300lb when I was still lifting. It’s good motivation for sticking with it. I can’t wait to be doing that again.

Whoo, 2 out of 5 weeks done. It’s going by fast. Even though freshmen in the Late Short Summer Session can only take 2 classes, I’m still in school for as much time as I would in the normal semester with 4 or 5 classes, that is about 16-17 hours a week. Now, I had my first college exam Wednesday, in Econ 2106. I didn’t feel it was sthat difficult, but I could be wrong. *crosses fingers* It’s worth 30% of my grade, which is a drastic transition from high school. If you failed a test in high school, it wasn’t that big of a deal because you know you’ll have plenty more in the semester. However, I sleep a great deal in that class and I’ve done pretty good on the quizzes, so I’m not that preoccupied over it. I doubt it’ll be as hard as the Computer Science test I have next Thursday. That class is getting to be all kinds of ridiculous. I went to the help desk for 1 and half hours, and I got 3 problems done on my homework. Oh well…we’ll see.

I’ve started looking at all the things I could get involved in at Tech. For one I want to keep on playing basketball, so I’ll probably join a intramural league. I want to make it a goal to pick up something different every semester. What though? I’m not sure yet. I also want to get involved in student council, join the chess club, and quite possibly pledge. Can’t wait for rush week. I just wonder if I’ll have time for all that. I had an upperclassman told me that he took 17 hours of classes his freshman year (the same amount I have) and he didn’t have a lot of time. My classes don’t look that hard, I don’t foresee any of them being hard except for maybe chemistry.

Oh yes, workout log update.

Time to get back to some more computer science. Does anyone know how to write a function to generate the n-th term of the fibonacci sequence in MATLAB?

Peace and love, Ben out