Wednesday 9/03/2008
1) FIRE ALARM at 1:07 AM, everyone had to wait outside for 2 hours.
2) ME 300 Professor – better than Lunesta at putting you to sleep.
3) I saw the Krannert art museum, specifically the LED display. LED’s are amazing.
4) Rain puddles make walking along streets very inconvenient, especially with buses.
5) Bike near the bike racks sat alone. With 3 locks on it.
6) ISR Dorm food; same old junk.
7) Surprise visit from friend! Cat doesn’t visit often since she moved to apartments.
8) Piano virtuoso in ISR Lounge C. Again.
9) The ducks are back in the ISR courtyard!
10) Walked by bars on way to prayer meeting. Jam packed for a school night.
Thursday 9/04/2008
1) Rain. Lots of rain. Too much rain.
2) Chinese class. Bi-weekly quiz today. All the Asians in my class finished early. Only me and this Caucasian guy stayed longer.
3) TASC (Taiwanese American Students Club) is amazing!
4) Nice poster I saw at the Union. What a great movie. What a shame.
5) Illini Union Colonial room. Supposed to be for fancier dining, but no one cared. Not fancy at all.
6) Met a surprise friend at lunch. Amazing shirt. She’s very ticklish. (It’s blurry, pic of Pillsbury Doughboy with text: Poke me and die).
7) Met another friend. Old friend from highschool that was gone for study abroad last semester. Gave him an Illini trash bin as a gift. He was so excited he put it on his head to try it out.
8) Bike broke during ride back to ISR in the rain. It was amazingly not cool.
9) Motivational magnet with attached fortune cookie.
10) 4 hours of designing and wiring, too lazy to check circuit to see if it actually works.
Friday 9/05/2008
1) Overslept my alarmclock, roommate accidentally wakes me up anyways because he thought I had class at 10 when I had it at 11. =]
2) “Free” coffee in Everitt Lab; donation cup actually had dollar bills in it (no one ever puts money in the cup).
3) Bike in bike racks locked to another bike and the bar. Must be a freshman.
4) Fell asleep again in ME 300. I wonder if I will ever be able to stay awake.
5) Met up with some people for lunch. So many people eat lunch at ISR, it’s like a mini reunion every day!
6) Homework. 5 hours straight of reading my engineering book. Quite an amazing feat as I was quite tired but didn’t fall asleep.
7) Met up with Mr. 4.0, a friend of mine who is a grad student. He graduated with a 4.0 in ECE. He’s also sort of like my mentor.
8) Saw a good friend at Foellinger, good times
9) Played “Pictionary man” with friends. It’s basically pictionary, except you draw on this doll man thing.
10) Practiced Chinese. You would think after all these thousands of years, they would have developed a better way to learn Chinese than just “write the character 100 times until you memorize it.”
Saturday 9/06/2008
1) Decided to sleep-in instead of working at the football game. We woulda won anyways (we did).
2) Did homework all morning, friends went to go play basketball without me. Engineering is harsh.
3) Went out for lunch with a friend. Za’s has a new menu design and logo? (and cups. I dont like them).
4) Friends call to played ultimate. Such a great day today, but I have too much homework to play.
5) My bike brakes don’t work properly; I lack the proper tools to adjust them (wrench anyone?). I guess my probably of crashing my bike went up exponentially.
6) ISR dining hall is enforcing a new policy of “No backpacks or large purses” in the cafeteria. We gotta leave them by the coat racks. I don’t see this rule staying for very long.
7) Fact: granola is one of the most commonly foods mistakenly considered “healthy.” There are over 500 calories in one cup of granola. My roommate looked it up.
8) Nerf guns have greatly increased in quality since when I was a kid. I somehow lost 2 darts doing target practice in my room.
9) Stopped by the lab to do some research work. This poster was inside the computer lab, it looks cool doesn’t it? That’s the power of POWER! :-D
10) The window in the men’s bathroom on the West side of Everitt Lab, second floor, is open. It’s been open every time I’ve gone in there since spring of last semester. I don’t think anyone has closed it since then.
Sunday 9/07/2008
1) Went to Church early, helped set up chairs for Sunday service. Despite what many people think, it does take skill to set up chairs properly. =]
2) Met up with some friends from my church back home for lunch. Such a diverse group of people who all happen to be at UIUC. Some of us are more “diverse” than others.
3) What great weather! Both days over the weekend were amazing, but I’m stuck inside doing homework. Looks like this is going to be a very long semester.
4) Met up with my lab partner; it’s been two weeks and neither of us care about the material anymore. We just want to get our prelabs and circuits done.
5) Found a surprise in my room. It was a star shaped cookie on a stick! Friends are awesome. :-)
6) I have a water cooler in my dorm room because I borrowed one for an event last weekend. They have yet to take it back from me; I think I’ve been suckered into storing it for them until they need it again.
7) My ECE 440 professor told us the strategy to getting an A in his class. Read the book 1 time, get a D, read it twice and get a C, read it 3 times and get a B, so read it 4 times and get an A. Unless you still don’t understand it; then read it 4 more times. Apparently, some people are reading it 4 (or 8) times, so I guess I have to now as well.
8) Bears are surprisingly good this year!
9) My ME 300 professor finally posted the homework assignment (that he was supposed to post on Friday). And I highly doubt anyone in the class noticed besides me.
10) The ISR lounges are already full of people studying. Atleast, it looks like they are studying until you sit down and listen to what they talk about for 2 minutes.
Monday 9/08/2008
1) My longest day of the week begins. I have every single one of my classes on monday.
2) My friend was really late for Chinese. We have quizzes at the beginning of class every day, she came in at the last second and wrote down all the characters while the teacher was going through the final say of each word. She still probably got a higher score than me.
3) I managed to bike to the armory on my way to ART 250 before it began to rain. No matter, I was still soaked through.
4) Overload. Carrying 2 bags and a full backpack while riding a bike. I wonder what people think of me when they watch me ride by.
5) Amazing. I was gone from 9:40 am until 6:50 pm. Mondays are amazingly long.
6) My friends have cool shirts. Where is my happy face?
7) Why are squirrels cute? What is it about certain animals that make them intrinsically cute to us? They also move to fast for me to take pictures of them.
8) I was going to name my camcorder. Except I have to return it on Wednesday. Anyways, her name is Meridith.
9) I just picked up some light reading for my research. It’s a 1000+ page catalog of various items sold by Grainger. ECE students get a discount. =]
10) My roommate always goes to sleep before me. I don’t think it’s fair.
Tuesday 9/09/2008
1) Woke up today. Weather forecast said it was 56 outside. Yay for global warming!
2) Met up with a friend at PAR. I finally visited it; the stir fry wasn’t bad.
3) Hopped up to the top of Everitt Lab. It was pretty sweet. Here’s a pic of the “skyline”
4) Here is one of the working antenna’s on the roof of Everitt. It’s still functional, even though it fell to its side.
5) Here is an old ladder randomly lying on top of the roof.
6) An old stool that has been up on the roof for who knows how long.
7) I found an owl pellet up there as well!
8) Last pic. It’s a shot of the top of Wesley Church. Tallest building on the Urbana side of campus.
9) 3 hours of lab to prove and demonstrate that our circuits actually work. Ours did! (most didn’t)
10) Celebrated a successful lab demonstration by doing more homework.
Wednesday 9/10/2008
1) Overslept again. Luckily my roommate woke me up again :-)
2) Bike broke on the way to Chinese class. I should probably fix my brakes.
3) Professor warns us of our “pop” quiz tomorrow, and then tells us to not worry about it and don’t study too hard.
4) Played a “game” of sorts in ART 250 class. We paired off and had one person close their eyes while the other one led them around to explore the world. I smacked my face into a parking meter. :<
5) A squirrel challenged me on the way home. It stared me down (and won).
6) Hung out with my friend who taught me some chords on the guitar.
7) We had a surprise birthday party for my friend; baked a cake and everything. Turns out he was at the ARC for 2 hours, then went to a meeting for 2 more hours and never showed up. We ate the cake anyways, it was HIS fault.
8) Wednesday night pm, always essential.
9) Finished my homework earlier than I planned. Unexpected hour break!
10) Found a nerf dart that went missing a few days ago.
Thursday 9/11/2008
1) Went to Chinese class. The chairs were arranged differently, in rows. Usually we sit in a large circle to promote participation.
2) Met up with a friend for lunch, we talked about our expectations for this semester. Sadly, neither of us were really positive.
3) Went to do research work at Everitt. It’s rather lonely and boring sometimes.
4) Came back and saw a cop write a jay-walking ticket. Sucked to be that guy.
5) I swear the quality of food at ISR gets worse every day.
6) Hung out with my roommate; despite living with him for the past 2 years, I don’t hang out with him much. I guess living with him all the time tends to make “hanging out” with him not that special.
7) Learned a lot more about PV solar panel systems. They can be much more effecient.
8) Shopped online for new headphones. I hate shopping online because I like to see things in person. Hopefully everything went alright.
9) Ordered cal zones from D.P. Dough. Glorious 24-hour delivery service. That’s one thing I missed at home. Food on demand :-)
10) Everyone who studies in lounges tend to not get anything done. I didn’t.
Friday 9/12/2008
1) Went to my ECE 440 class and aced the quiz. I think. Either that or I did horrendous.
2) Meeting with ECESAC. I think it’s the only organization that provides free food for members that show up. Jimmy Johns tastes better free :-)
3) Rained hard all day, bike brakes slipped off again.
4) Went to bike shop, was told by owner he doesn’t work on toy bikes. I guess I’m SOL, I’ll just hope I never have to brake hard.
5) Rain canceled ultimate frisbee, but I still went out and tossed around a bit in the rain with a friend. We weren’t that wet.
6) Helped load up van with chairs for church.
7) I never noticed there were so many butterflies on campus. Maybe the rain has something to do with it.
8) Lincoln hall really REALLY needs a renovation.
9) Played the “bowl game” with friends (think poor man’s version of taboo).
10) Saw the mythical “Darryl’s box” of ECE homework, lectures and notes. It’s a huge file box of answers from various engineering classes with copious notes.
Saturday 9/13/2008
1) Woke up late again, went to Everitt to do research.
2) Met up with a friend for lunch at Jimmy Johns. Vote for Jimmy!
3) Lugged a solar panel around to take measurements. Those things are HEAVY.
4) Sat in lab for 6 hours reading up on solar panel systems to be able to develop a wiring schematic.
5) Won a free potbelly’s sub for completing a profile online for ECE students!
6) The water cooler I borrowed is STILL in my room.
7) Shot the bulls eye with my nerf gun!
8) Roommate sent me link of an amazing youtube video. Rap battle translation.
9) This is what my roommate does when I’m doing homework.
10) Late night designing up wiring schematic. It looks confusing, and I was the one who designed it.
Sunday 9/14/2008
1) Sunday! :-)
2) Woke up today to a downpour outside. Had to move chairs from the van inside for church. Amazingly, the rain stopped for about 10 minutes right when we went out and started up again a couple minutes after we finished. Praise God! :-)
3) Flooded streets and heavy downpour. Still saw someone walking their dog despite the weather.
4) Had lunch with a friend, it was her birthday. No one planned anything for her :(
5) Worked on ECE 385 all afternoon. Schematics suck. So does wiring.
6) Forgot dining hall closed 30 minutes earlier on Sundays. What a freshman mistake.
7) Late night food is so greasy.
8) Someone drew on my nerf dart target. Now it looks like a face.
9) Research is hard. Or it might just be because I don’t know what I’m doing.
10) Me! Ok, I don’t really see myself, but I see my reflection many times.
Monday 9/15/2008
1) Start of another week. My alarm clock went off too early.
2) Class all day, we had a decent number of people show up to ME 300, although a number of them fell asleep again.
3) Long day. Almost everyone in ECE 385 fell asleep during the lecture. Literally.
4) Met up with grad student to discuss work for the week. So much to do, it’s over my head somewhat.
5) Went to a friends apartment for dinner. Chicken, celery and apples apparently do taste good together.
6) Crocs are fugly.
7) More wiring.
8) Don’t disturb people when they have work to do!
9) Visited my friends room. She was trying to play marco polo with a hood over her head.
10) Nerf guns are great stress relief.
Tuesday 9/16/2008
1) My friend was embarrassed to have me take her picture. She told me to take pictures of strange people, so there we go!
2) Headphones came in today!
3) Roommate extremely angry at ambiguous instructions from professors. He’s really stressed out currently.
4) Went into lab without having the circuit completely wired up. Hopefully it works.
5) My throat is getting sore, I might be falling sick.
6) My lab partner and I finished in 1 hour 20 minutes!! It was amazing, probably one of the fastest times ever!
7) Unexpected free time is always a wonderful gift.
8) Bible study; new year, new small group.
9) The moon is exceptionally bright and round. Amazing. This picture fails to do it justice.
10) Drugs. I have a sore throat. I think I’m gunna get real sick. :<
Wednesday 9/17/2008
1) People always fall asleep in class. It just gets noticed more if you sit in the first row.
2) Saw two bikers crash today, because someone wasn’t watching where they were walking.
3) Saw some people playing poker. I haven’t played in years even though I have random chips lying around.
4) I saw a squirrel climbing on bikes, it kept hopping from one to another.
5) Picked up a tripod and camcorder today. Rode my bike home with too many things and not enough hands.
6) Pile of Powerade caps keep increasing because I’m too lazy to redeem the codes online.
7) Fat Dons opens today! Too bad I’m too busy to go.
8) Friend put up Christmas lights already.
9) Studied Chinese for hours. I don’t like the class
10) Still sick. I’d take a picture of my throat except it’s hard to. But it looks very very red.
Bring me Java, Bring me Joy 