Origins of The Shadow

Okay, so this was a comment to something Spectre had said elsewhere and I decided to repost it as material for my blog :)

Wow Spectre! Your comments are beginning to look like mine as far as length! I have a horrible tendency to ramble. I did like your little talk. Recently a person posted a comic strip down by the Physics department about how Evolution is obviously the only way to go and Christianity (or creationism) is like trying to teach alchemy, or astrology. It's just stupid! was their contention.

Then someone else comes along and makes this little comment on the side (in pencil) "and someone thought this was funny?" meaning that yeah, it's true but it's sad that anyone could possibly believe anything other than evolution. It made me slightly..... disturbed. So took out the bookmark I had and wrote a long explanation/argument why Christianity did indeed explain origins much more satisfactorily than evolution could and pointed out several errors that evolution has and how people don't seem to realize that it is merely a theory and has not been proven. Fossil evidence of "evolved species" is found in EXACTLY the same spot as fossils of fish or birds that are just like they are today. But they thrust those aside and look at these other ones. If the layers of strata are how they say they are, those fish must have dug down before they died and were fossilized, OR (gasp) possibly these new fossils aren't evolved but are just extinct species!

Anyway, this note that I posted with my side of the arument logically laid out.... someone just came along and penned a couple of letters that stand for a swear word over the top of it. There was not even an attempt to repudiate my logic, they just said "bah, he's stupid" with no reason given. I just shrug my shoulders and move on. It stayed down there on the board next to the comic for over a month so hopefully some other people read it.

It's been my peeve for a while that Science should be looking at the facts and formulating theories to explain those facts based on what they have. Not look at certain facts and make up other ones and try to prove their THEORY by looking for other stuff.

Recently I read an article about a link that proves that fish evolved into land animals (which is why we have land creatures apparently). They decided that if fish DID evolve into land animals, they would probably have done it in shallow water because then they would have to get used to both air and water and eventually would crawl up on land and leave the water altogether. So they went to some island that had some shallow water pools near the shore and amazingly they found some fossils that looked like a crocodile with fins and now they've proved evolution! First of all, it does sound highly suspicious to me to find fossils in exactly the spot you decided they must be, they aren't extremely common you know.
Second, they went looking in shallow water near the ocean. If these fossils and evolutionary links are many millions of years old (or possibly a billion) then don't you think the rocks around that "shallow water" would have eroded just a tiny bit? I mean, I would expect the island to have been much larger way back then so now the shallow water that was then, is far out into the ocean and pretty deep underwater!

But these poor "sheeple" just nod their heads and agree to everything that is told them. Ah! They say. The power of evolution to predict where fossils should be! Isn't it amazing that we've discovered the secrets of the universe! We've proved that there is no God and that everything just happened to evolve like it is (never mind the law entropy, we'll forget that for the moment) and therefore it must have started as chemicals in a pond with an electric current which itself all came billions of years ago from a very large explosion. Where the explosion and matter itself came from we don't care to think about.

It's a thing that bugs me too Spectre, something that bothers me indeed. I see comics, newpaper articles, etc. on the outside of teacher's doors that uphold this theory of evolution as fact and mock Christianity and the belief in a God. Why? They'd say because they are obviously wiser and more scientific and know better than us poor dumb people. They know it is true because they feel it's true, or at least they don't want to feel that there is a God so they cling to whatever else presents itself.

The sad thing though is, that many, MANY so-called Christians have fallen for it. On the discussion for the same article, when people are bashing Christians as that group of dumb people that wouldn't believe "science" (I thought skeptics were the best scientists because they didn't accept what everybody told them, like Copernicus didn't believe the sun moved around the earth) and how dumb they are before the "mighty facts of evolution." Then some people who claimed to be Christians came on and tried to justify themselves by saying "Oh no! We Christians believe in evolution too, we think that God started evolution off and the Genesis account is just something of a pictorial representation of that." I was really taken aback by that though I've seen it before. They are doing far more harm than any evolutionist is doing when they speak on a topic such as that. They are basically denying that God has the power to create, all because they want to appear smart and to fit in and not be mocked by the world. They have been led astray by their own weakness and stupidity.

I am perfectly willing to evaluate the facts, to look at evidence and then make a decision, that decision of course would be influenced by the only standard men can live by: The Bible. But my "opponents" or peers say that I'm close-minded, while they in turn will not believe anything other than evolution because they think for some reason that it MUST be true! Or they dont' want to think of a world where it isn't true because then (another gasp) they might be accountable to a God. So rather than face that thought, they hide under the blankets of evolution and cry out "go away God, you can't get me!" just like a child will run to his or her bed and pull the covers over their head and say "now that bad man with the knife can't touch me." Before. Hiding from God doesn't prove that there is no God, and that someday you will be judged. How I want to reach out to these people sometimes but like the dwarves in The Last Battle, they have blinded their own eyes and rather than partaking of the feast set before them, claim that it's all rubbish and rotten in this world. Rather than see light, they close their eyes so that they will wallow in darkness, they would rather stumble than walk clearly, for men hate the light and walk in darkness. (John 3:19,20)

Obviously this has been something written for Christians. Just another rambling post I guess(see, that's how you write 'em Spectre ;) ). It's something that has bothered me for a while and I've commented on frequently in other places. It boggles the mind. Anyway, I should probably repost this on my blog for filler material!

And yes, this was all just a "comment" :(

House of Shadows

Okay, first let me complain a little. I feel like I'm doing a lot of that lately. *sigh*

This last Friday I told my lab partners in Engineering that I would handle all of the documentation for this week (I've been doing it all anyway) and all I wanted them to do is come up with individual sketches for our final concept (a powered wagon with a scissor lift) and we'd compare on Tuesday and I could get ideas from it, write about it, and then we'd have some drawings for the report in the Appendix.

Come Tuesday I had made some drawings in AutoCAD (after all, that's part of this course) and was ready to show them. One team member had just quickly sketched out in pen a quick concept (which looked like he had done it five minutes previous to the meeting) another partner hadn't done anything, and the third didn't show up, he e-mailed about an hour before the meeting and said he had some tests the next day and he needed to do well on them in order to pass the classes and keep his scholarship (what scholarship that is, I don't know). Now first off, he should have taken that into consideration before committing to a team meeting. I'm sure he just waited until the last minute and decided to leave the team on high ground because of his own lack of studying.

So anyway, I had my drawings on AutoCAD, the two members who were present liked my drawing and they both said that they would work on the final version of it, going off of my drawing that I had and would turn it in later to me for the report. I said okay, but I really needed it by Thursday, when we were going to meet again (I had assigned them the drawing a while back). Thursday came around and all of us were present but one of the two who said he'd work on the drawing, hadn't done anything, and the other said that he just needed more time, it was too complicated and he didn't do it. He said he had a Calculus test the next day that he really needed to study for so he couldn't work on it.So guess who stayed up late and went to campus early the next day to finish the drawings? Yours truly. In addition to the report which I had worked on for a couple of hours to prepare and finalize, I had to pick up the part that I'd assigned to them because they didn't do it.

Every minute of today until about 5:00 was taken up with schoolwork, running around from building to building, finishing the drawings, working on my own program, and printing out and finalizing the report because I was waiting for those drawings to add! *sigh*

Oh, but it gets better!
We were initially supposed to submit documentation for Digital Logic Design on last Friday but the TA moved the due date a week later, to this Friday. As of last Friday I had a very basic, minimal report from one of my lab partners, you may recall that I had been doing all of the programming and had assigned the other guy on my team to work on the case to house the project and circuit board and the two ladies I had assigned to documentation. The little report was a page long and was totally in error, they didn't understand the project at all. So Tuesday I spent two hours with them going over various parts of the project and what I had done and laying out what they should have in their documentation. I could have done it myself in those two hours (easily) but I wanted them to do their share. I said I wanted to do our presentation on Thursday so could they have it done by then? Sure!

I had wanted to do the presentation Tuesday but all of our team wasn't there at once and the TA said that he would prefer all the team members be there.

So Thursday comes, one team member didn't show up for class but that was okay, we did our presentation anyway. The documentation wasn't done though. I talked to one of the TAs and he said sadly, that's one of the things about being on the team. I don't get graded for the work that I put into the project, our entire team falls or succeeds based on the outcome. So I can have done everything myself except for one part and still get a lousy grade along with everyone else in the team. I asked him if I should do a backup documentation just in case and he said if I was concerned about it, then yes. So in addition to my own personal things, I had to write up some documentation, and then later in the evening I find out I had to do the drawing for the other team project myself as well. How do these people survive college? By getting placed with team members like me I guess!

I saw a professor this evening that I'd had the previous semester (and really, really liked, he put a lot of effort into it) and he was asking about my project and I was telling him and mentioned the situation and he asked who the members were and I explained and he recognized one of them and said he had her last semester in the same class (DLD, which means this is her second time) and if she put as much effort into it this semester as she did last semester then he didn't wonder I was suffering. She apparently thought he was trying to withold something from her or "had it out" for her and wrote a nasty letter to the department about him.

And today the documentation was NOT turned in so it's good I had the backup, though I didn't tell anyone. One of my partners asked if Shannin had contacted me and when I said no, she told me that Shannin had said she talked to Fritz and her son had to go to the hospital for some infection and so Fritz had apparently said she could turn it in later. Well, Fritz (the TA) was right there and he said he'd heard nothing. If her son really has an infection then fine, but (this may sound harsh) I want to see a doctor's report or something because I kind of am doubting it. I give them the easiest job (two of them) and what do I get? Nothing. Good thing I did it myself. I mean, I've put in over 25 hours on the project easily and how much time have they spent on their job? Less than an hour I imagine. I feel like I'm being forced not only to do above and beyond my share of the work, but also to do what little I've assigned to my partners. I'm sick of it frankly. I am not going to give good peer evaluations.

Now that I've got all that off my chest, hopefully I'll stop complaining, because honestly, I don't always do that.

Oh! Hey! Look, as I write this (10:40 at night) I just got a notification that the documentation has been submitted electronically! Talk about waiting until the last minute.

Okay, so on with the show (literally).

Tonight I competed in the Electrical Engineer's yearly Double Dare challenge, the team I was on was with a student from Germany that appeared to be very smart, another gamer guy, and Dr Latino, who was the professor I mentioned above. He's just brilliant :)

There were 8 teams of roughly four or five people each and they divided the teams in half, teams 1,3,5,7 went on the right, teams 2,4,6,8 went on the left. The left, massive team was Team B, and the right massive team was Team A. Then they would ask a question between Team 1 and Team 2 and whoever got it right, scored points for the "mega team." Then they'd go to Team 3 vs. Team 4 and so on. We were Team 1 but teams 3,5,7 didn't do too well. Our team answered correctly every question we got, but overall, our mega team flunked pretty badly so that entire half of the room was eliminated, us with it sadly (though we were the best of the lot in my opinion of course). Just the luck of the draw in that situation. We could not have done any better as a team but it wasn't enough to compensate for the rest of the mega group. I stayed around and watched the rest of it. I liked a lot of the questions. Just simple things like
"how many milliliters is in 1 cubic centimeter of water?"
or
"If you had a rope that went around the earth's equator along ground level and your raised the rope to one foot above ground level, how much longer would the rope need to be?"
or
"What does the "V" in the acronymn "DVD" stand for?
or
"Name the man for whom the unit for capacitance is named after"
or
"how many picoFarads are in one microFarad?
or
"what is the weight of an electron?"
or
"Why did Beethoven get rid of his chickens" (which was a silly one)
or
"What is the SI unit for luminescence?"
or
"What is the temperature in Kelvin when it is 10 degress Celsius?"
or
"What is the output, in decimal of 1010 and 1100 when OR-ed together?"
or
"What does the acronymn RISC stand for?"
or
"what is the temperature at which Farenheit and Celsius units are equal?"
And other such great questions. I don't remember them all. I do love trivia though!

So that was a fun night. Some Calculus tomorrow and hopefully I'll be able to take a bit of the day off to read some. Now that I've finished my ranting, I'm good for another week. I just had to vent a little, sorry about that, I don't mean to complain all the time. So good night!

Fists of The Shadow

Okay, so it's been brought to my attention by more than a couple of people that eating out of the trash is gross. Perhaps I should explain further. It was a small wastebasket in a faculty meeting room that normally is locked. The wastebasket is emptied every day and seldom contains more than a few papers. This day however, the people who had used the room had eaten lunch (by ordering Mazzio's Pizza) and had just crammed the boxes into the wastebasket. That's pretty much all that was in there. I think it's much cleaner than some of the bathrooms on campus and the main appeal I guess was not so much hunger, but just was the chance to claim that one had eaten out of a trashcan. Once the idea entered my mind it was nigh impossible to turn it down. The task HAD to be done and is probably a one time occurance similar to climbing Mount Morrison. Now I can tell future generations all about my accomplishments.

Phew, so now that it's all explained..... grossing out of or making puke of friends and well-wishers..... (ask STupendous. He knows.)

Here's some more delinquent stories.

I had taken my Physics exam Thursday evening at 5:30, at 6:00 all the Electrical students were going to a banquet, but I couldn't go sadly. So at 6:30 when my test ended, I wandered back to the lab determined to finish my project that evening. Of course it's locked.
The building is dead silent, I don't know if there was anyone else in it except for myself or maybe a teacher working late in his office, so I whipped out my trusty pocket knife and fished back the lock in a matter of seconds. It's supposed to be stiff enough to withstand that, but we have more than one tool on our knife!

But once inside the lab I had to avoid the cameras, which are hooked up to the Internet so that anyone can check and see if there is a person in the lab (to see if it's open without actually going there). They are on a consistent cycle so that wasn't difficult. But the two doors going into the part of the lab I wanted to get to were locked and I couldn't force the locks back. I should have studied that article harder.....

http://home.howstuffworks.com/lock-picking.htm

There was a window open in the lab but it wouldn't have been too easy to scale the outside of the building, being three floors up and with no ledges to step or grab onto. But who needs Spiderman anyway?

The ceiling was just tiled with the cardboard-type stuff. So a chair, some meticulous timing, and a quick pull upward and I was into the ceiling and smoothly dropped over the wall on the other side, replacing the tile behind me.

And that was that. About 3 hours later some of the TAs came back (from a party after the banquet) and one of them was a little surprised to see me in there. He asked:
"Do you have a key?"
"No."
"Did someone let you in?"
"No."
"Was the door unlocked?"
"No."
"Then how did you get in?!"

The Shadow knows.....




I did tell one of the TAs how I did it. He said he was pretty impressed and they don't really mind, the lab is supposed to be open most of the time anyways, they had said 24 hours a day but it hasn't been that.

One of the girls who came in with the crowd wanted to try out my game that I was building. She kept crashing (it's something of a racecar game) and said something about having just a little too much to drink at the party afterwards. You shouldn't drink and drive!

The Shadow's Curse

For lack of better titles I'll continue in this style.

Whoah! Look! Another update! Two in a month? Are you sure you're not straining yourself there Shadow?

Imagine my surprise when I got to the end of this week and realized I'd finished my Engineering homework, my Digital project, there was no Math homework, no exams to study for, and basically, ahead of schedule on the Engineering project. So I relaxed today, talked with a few people over the Internet, wrote a (really) long letter to a young lady at the college about some biblical issues, and read a bit. "Az dood" (in the words of young Miss Y).

This past week has been a very tiring one though, on Wednesday I was up until 1:00 in the morning working on an application for a job and some homework. Then I went to bed and got back up at 6:00 to get ready for the prayer meeting in the morning and wound up staying on campus after that until 11:45 (and by the time I got home and went to bed it was about 12:30).

I have sent in a job application for Kicker here in Stillwater which I hope is accepted. It's exactly what I want to do. The job description says that the applicant must be able to focus on a task for an extended period of time, be able to do the work in a timely manner, be willing to learn how to solder etc. Basically it's a position for warranty repair work on the systems that they make. If I was going to ask for a job at a company such as that, this is exactly what I would have asked for and they "happened" to have at least one position open in that area. So if the Lord wills, I may be working there this summer. It would be great, doing what I want to do, in the field in which my studies are, making a bit of money for my tuition or savings AND being able to stay here at the church. What more could one ask for? Well, to be accepted for the position I suppose. I would appreciate prayers in that area.

On the Digital project I was able to stay up at the lab late a few nights (usually for about 6 hours at a time) and finally got a decent working prototype. I may go back and polish it up a little in the next few weeks but essentially I'm done. That was the bulk of the project and I never saw my lab partners staying past the designated lab time, if they even came. The two ladies are supposed to be working on the documentation but neither of them understand the project at all. A classmate told me that two of my partners had come in and were asking for help understanding one of the diagrams I had sent them (for documentation purposes). They should be able to understand that as it's one of the basic principles of the course. He was amazed that they didn't know about it.

And my other lab partner, who was supposed to be working on the case to hold all of this, hasn't started yet, though I have given him over 5 weeks advance notice. Since he didn't come to lab but a couple times (I guess he figured I didn't need help on the project) he could have been working on that part of it. I'm going to ask the instructor if I can be graded on my part that I did (by far the lion's share) and if my grade cannot be affected by the other parts of the project that my teammates are doing.

I know I must sound like I'm complaining a lot but really, there could be a little better work ethic.

Now in the Engineering project, two of them this past Friday were just kind of goofing off the entire time (one of them said he was just waiting until 4:20 when they could leave) and I tried to involve them in the decision making as much as I could. Thankfully though, my other partner (an Asian-American student) was wanting to get as much done as we could during the time allotted. He seemed a bit upset about the lack of seriousness from the other two as well, so that was encouraging to me. All the other two were talking about was getting drunk.

So it was a very busy and tiring week (a program due, a Physics exam, Math Exam, working on projects) but it was worth it in retrospect. I think I'm ready for a new week now. I was thankful to be able to go to Boy's Brigade as well, it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed seeing Pastor work with the boys. He is such an example to me in every area I can think of.

This afternoon I finished up "What is Reformed Theology" by Sproul, caught up on the last two chapters of Luke in the "Let's Study Luke" book for the Wednesday Bible study and read ahead for the next week's study, and I also read a little in "Revival and Revivalism" by Murray, in addition to my personal Bible reading and the article for the weekend in TableTalk. I also sent some pictures to my Mature Gaming Friend (MGF) that I had sitting in my camera for the past month and a half most likely and had never gotten around to. And.... some laundry. Now I need to go shopping and I think I may grab a bite to eat somewhere.

I have to take this opportunity to tell one quick little story about last week. It was Friday and I was up in the Math building on the fourth floor after having spoken with my teacher. It was getting to be about 8:00 at night and I hadn't stopped for anything to eat since breakfast (which was a piece of toast or something) and was starving but I was determined to get my homework done before I went home. In the trash can something caught my eye...... Hello! A half-eaten piece of pizza left over from the faculty that afternoon (the boxes were empty except for that one half piece) Once the thought entered my mind I just grinned to myself and couldn't resist. It makes for a good story anyway. So I tore off the little edge that had been eaten and chomped down on the rest. Chicken, tomatoes, and garlic. That was just about the best tasting thing I'd ever had!

Yes, even better than burritos.

The Shadow Laughs

Okay, I've just got to do an update here. My fingers are screaming at me to pass on stored information floating around somewhere.....

Let's start with two weeks ago when me and my "team" (note the sarcasm) in Digital Logic, were supposed to give a presentation on Tuesday. The lab was closed Monday and most of Tuesday and my demonstration (I'm doing all of the programming) wasn't quite ready, two of my lab partners came and both fell asleep on the bench while I was working on the program. I stayed until late that night and we had already planned to demo the next day (Wednesday, one of my partners had set up the time) so I can and was ready to go, but not a single one of my partners came. "Uh.... my command crew is ready but I don't have a team for my shuttle......"

So I sent a rather stern e-mail to my partners and everyone did show up on Thursday, when we did the demonstration and were approved. I asked one of my partners (who had said he was going to show up on Wednesday) why he hadn't come and he said he wasn't feel all that well so just decided not to come. Well, a little communication wouldn't hurt. I've sent out about 15 e-mails to each of my partners and had about an average of two replies each. That is a very sad lack of communication.

Since I'm doing the actual project, I asked R if he would do the physical building of the cabinet to put the thing in (like an arcade game) which he said would be no problem. It would be nice if it was no problem but we'll see, I don't think he's started yet. The other two ladies I stuck together on the documentation aspect. I found out later the next week that we were supposed to have a proposal done by the end of the week, so I notified them (though since that's really all their doing, they should have been able to keep tabs on it I believe) and yet by Friday afternoon (the last day to be turned in) it still hadn't been done. That made me a bit exasperated I have to admit. I don't feel like I should have to keep everyone on my team in line and make sure they do their jobs. Nor do I feel as though I should have to assign tasks and then make a backup proposal myself just in case they don't turn it in. The proposal finally was turned in, about 4 paragraphs (all very short) and with not much information so I was a bit disappointed. The TA's know what is going on and so does the instructor, so it shouldn't affect my grade, at least I hope not!

Two Fridays ago I was also introduced to my new team members for Engineering Design, which was also disappointing. We had about an hour in which to work together as a team and get started on the project so what did my partners decide? Ah, we'll just meet at 10:00 Sunday night and work on it then. I protested very loudly but was overruled, a couple of them do have part-time jobs that takes up a lot of time so I can understand it being hard to work out a schedule where we can all meet but still! Again, I've sent out about 18 e-mails so far to them and had 1 response from one of them. I am not meeting on Sunday nights though, if they want to, fine, but I'm doing all the documentation and the report anyway (which is basically everything). Jon did say that he had a lot to do next week because he had 10 hours of community service left to finish by Thursday. All of them have admitted to being drunk from time to time, two of them said (the Thursday we had a meeting) that they had fun at Jon's house throwing beer cans into the ceiling fan, while drunk of course. *cries*

But, through God's grace I think I'll be able to handle it, it's hard to get people motivated to do any kind of work, but even if I did it all myself I think it might be possible, I've come to have a strong dislike for the groups here, everybody is a freeloader that I've gotten stuck with. I wish I could get some good partners who equally wanted to stay ahead of the project instead of waiting until the night before and working until 3:00 in the morning (which I will not do).

Speaking of my lab partners (and then I'll get off of my rant) on April first I sent out an e-mail to two of my partners in the Digital Logic. I said:

"I decided that this final project is just going to be too much for me
to handle, I was puzzling over it in the lab today and I really need
to focus on my other classes. I've spoken with Dr Teague and he agrees
that it's probably best."


And then a ways under that had "April Fools." I think that might be considered a homicide attempt though, heart attacks can be very dangerous! ;) But if I went out, they would all fail because I'm the only one that has been working with the stateCAD program at all for the last 5 weeks (ever since we started). It's not that I'm unwilling to explain or let the others help, but when they can't even handle a proposal in a timely manner, then how much can I expect?

There are good classmates to be sure, but none of them are on my team. I heard they assign teams based on GPA (to not have all the 4.0 students in one group etc.). Such is the difficulties of working in a college team environment. :(

Okay, so on to other things. Let's see. Well, yesterday it was really rather funny. We were riding in the F. Van to the evening Bible Study and I was sitting in the back seat next to Cal, and next to him was Christa and then Jonathan on the opposite side of the back seat. Cal and Christa are both out of their car seats now. After a while it started getting rather noisy so I asked if they would like me to read from some of Hodge's Systematic Theology. Tlepolemus said I should do so and I continued from where I was to finish the section about pantheism. Cal fell asleep in about 10 minutes. About 20 minutes after I started reading, I glanced over and everyone in the back row was asleep, Cal, Christa, AND Jonathan! Sorry Mr Hodge, it must be you I don't think it's me! ;)

I was told I should start selling CD's for insomniacs. Mr Vaknor complimented me later and said that he thought I did have a good "radio reading" voice, I guess everyone was tired, or Hodge was boring, or something. I thought it was very interesting personally.

The class average on the last Physics exam was a 49% I found out today. I had about an 88% (which was okay) but I found out that apparently there is going to be no curve! The instructor simply said she'd wait for a lot of students to drop and then that would bring the average up higher. I guess in one way I can agree with that, but at the same time, I've heard so many students say they did extremely well in highschool physics or in another college physics course, but this one they find to be very difficult and they don't know how anyone could even pass the class if they hadn't had physics before. Well, I had an extremely introductory physics previously so it is like brand new things for me, but I really have to work hard at this. I went to the help sessions every week for the first 8 weeks or so, I see the TA's during their office hours (once or twice a week) I've spoken with the instructor, I do the homework problems multiple times, it's just that the instructor, though very nice, doesn't really discuss any of the concepts. She just works problems on the projector, which in one way is okay but she seems to view it all as formulas and mathematics, when in fact it is a lot of logic and reasoning and deduction and analysis. I end up going to the TA's, and reading the book. I am positive I could have not gone to class at all and done just as well, and I'd almost never say that but in this case it is pretty close to true.

But let's say that 75% of the class does drop and then there is no curve. Am I still going to be looking at a B? That would sure be a disappointment. I'm not a fan of curves generally, I don't want a lot of people who would normally get F's to not try hard because they rely on a curve, but in some cases it is applicable. :)

Well, it's been nice chatting with you but I've got to get back to work. I've dallied too much already. Thinking back over what I've written this evening, a lot of it isn't very encouraging stuff. To be sure there is a lot that has gone on in the past few weeks that I was very thankful for (my family giving a birthday party for me and the P's and N's and J. Nathan coming to it), and different interactions I've had with people etc. Oh it's been very good and I don't want to give the opposite impression. Okay, I'm really going this time. Bye :)

Edit: By the way, if anyone wants to see what one of my TA's in Digital Logic looks like (he's a really nice guy) then you can see the course website here:
http://ecen3233.okstate.edu/
It's run by the other TA ;)


Edit2: One other thing I forgot to mention that I thought was rather amusing today. I went into Walmart for about 10 minutes and while I was there I had two separate people come up to me wanting to ask a question since they apparently thought I looked like an employee. I just had my slacks and blue collared short-sleeve shirt on. I'm not sure if being mistaken for a Walmart employee today was good or bad.... Either I looked professional (with my pencil and red pen in my shirt pocket) or maybe I had a "How may I help you" taped to my back and I didn't know it.....