Bike Tutorial tonight

So, the skinny on today is: I'm very busy.

I've got to go over my written assignment for programming class, and pretty much rewrite part of it to more closely match the standard I need to follow. There's an informal write-up for physics, which is just vector math, and physics isn't until six tomorrow. Low priority. There's a commuter class from 5-8:30 for bicyclists, which is why I've held off riding my newly reworked bicycle until now, so I'm definitely not missing it. I like to do things the right way if possible.

Reading is doing well. Being ahead of the reading - and I have now read hundreds of pages of material, I'm up to page 200 in my programming book, looking over chapter 4 in physics, and am up to date on my ece book for next class - has really paid off in paying attention to lectures, I feel like I'm getting a lot more out of them. It struck me today that with hard classes the thing I will need to focus on is getting ahead... I should begin working on the first projects for my classes as soon as possible. Not very useful that I'm busy all tonight, but certainly after I get done with the informal write-up tomorrow there'll be /some/ time to pull ahead.

In a bizarre twist of fate, (bizarre because none of my other important cards got lost) I've lost my license and social security card (and a moleskin, and some decent electronics notes I can probably replicate just fine, almost from memory at this point, its kind of lesson zero or whatever about electronics so I know a bunch of it - how to solder, what each of the most common components are, how to read resistor color codes. I'm still shaky on interpreting circuit diagrams... need more practice on the ones where there's feedback / etc happening). I know I can get them both replaced, but I'll need to hold off a few days before I can do that. So, especially if you see BANK statements arrive in the mail at the old house (speaking of, is there still an old house?) please hold onto them for me until... probably Friday.

Two new packages arrived at the Ondine bldg for me today: a book on Verilog programming (optional for the digital design course, but recommended) and a book called The Civilized Engineer that I apparently wanted a long time ago, and was on sale for 90 cents(plus shipping), so I went for it.

The cost of all these textbooks (especially the physics book) has really driven down my funds. I don't think its really necessary to have a hard copy but it was bothering me to think of it being required for lab, and to have the teacher's assistant who runs the lab see my obvious pirated copy, though I think if anything he'd probably congratulate me for it. The pain in the ass thing being that my schedule is not going to really let me eat meals today. I have a choice of eating out (very tempting as usual) and eating in (toast, peanut butter and jelly, macaroni and cheese, or ... something random).

In online activities... I just completed the 'engage a stryll target' mission in Galaxy Legion on facebook, and am actively trying to defeat the Stryll ship. Since its significantly stronger this just involves attacking it and going off to get repaired repeatedly. The biggest danger is running out of time before I wear through its shields, since its only available for nineteen hours. But I'm already more than halfway through now, so it is looking good. I hope the reward for destroying it is high.

I wrote ... eh, a couple of paragraphs of a story, sort of a short / weird fiction thing I'm playing with about ecosystems of self-reproducing machines which take over the earth after the human race dies off. I don't think it would actually happen, its just fun to imagine what the ecology would be like- the biomass-eaters, the photovorous autotrophs etc.

That's most of the news from here.