BEWARE OF THE SINGULARITY!

Hello there, internets.  It has been a while.  Some updates, kind of in order.

Yes, I finished my degree.  No, I am not likely to post the last semester's installment of final exams drama.  Respectable grades all 'round, in the end, and a completed thesis, but it was sufficiently horrible that I just won't go there.  If ever it becomes mellowed by age, such that it's hilarious in retrospect, then maybe.  But not now.

I missed Yuletide noms.  Then I missed Yuletide reg, by less than an hour.  Oh well.

This month, I must kick my ongoing job search into the highest of gears.  I must also finish knitting a cardigan for the Sibling Critter by Christmas.  For these reasons, I have just signed up for NaNoWriMo.

...No, that doesn't make sense to me, either.

I've actually already got ~24,000 words of my main project written.  My goal for November is to write an additional 50,000 words and complete a full draft of the story.

This will be interesting.

Monday: 

Did adequately, if not precisely well, on Systems exam.  Manufacturing was a miserable slog through seventy short-answer questions in a row, but was tedious rather than difficult.

After nonstop brain work 0730 - 1600, went for Mexican food with the Boy because enough is e-fucking-nough.  Went to rapper practice, then went home and made slides for Biomaterials.

Tuesday:

Biomaterials went very well- full marks for both the presentation and the paper, and a confirmed A+ for the course.  Statistics was easier than expected, and I feel good about my performance on it.

Aside from the fact that the difficult bits of it came off perfectly fine, most of the rest of Tuesday blew goats, starting with the bit at the beginning in which I didn't sleep properly and had to scrape myself out of bed at 0830 ill-rested and cross.  Studied Stats for three hours, revised slides for another hour, went to Biomaterials all keyed-up and panicky and desperate to get it out of the way so I could finish up my Stats revision...

...and waited in the hall for forty minutes, because we were all locked out of the classroom, and then waited another forty minutes while other people presented.  After presentations finished up, spent my last hour before Stats frantically reviewing my notes.

Finished Stats exam at 1815, leaving just enough time for me to go home and change, then turn right 'round and go to longsword training.  Which is exactly what I did, because I had earned it.

Know what's super therapeutic?  Hitting people with fifty inches of steel, that's what.  Also, hot baths, one of which I had afterward.

Edited to fix italics.

So I had just gotten home and settled on the couch, when there came a sudden flash and a crackle just outside the window.  Looking out into the parking lot, I saw some clever young thing holding a lit firework tube in his hand while it launched various flashbangs and other incendiaries into the air.  He then lobbed the spent firework at someone's car and ran away... into the parking garage, which has even better CCTV coverage than the parking lot does.

I expect we'll be getting email from the management about this.

Today is the last day of classes in the penultimate semester of my undergraduate degree, which means it's time for another riveting installment of me grousing about my exams.

Things What I Have Got To Do:

     Monday 12/10, 1030: System Dynamics exam, plus project due.

     Monday 12/10, 1330: Manufacturing exam, plus extra credit assignment due

     Tuesday 12/11, 1330: Biomaterials presentation

     Tuesday 12/11, 1630: Statistics exam

     Thursday 12/13, 1030: Capstone Design Seminar exam, plus Preliminary Design Report due

     Thursday 12/13, 1400: Last Thesis Committee meeting of the semester, plus formal progress report due

That's quite a lot of things.

For a day that started at 0530 with spontaneous inability to sleep, and has consisted so far of an hour of early-morning studying and ~6 hours of back-to-back final exams, today is actually pretty good. :)

I feel super awesome about how Elements went- like , damn-near-perfect-paper-type awesome. Not half bad considering my studying for that involved like five practice problems and some sticky notes in the textbook.

I knew going in that Heat Xfer was going to be tricky, which is why I did all of the studying for that and none of the studying for Elements, and I think it paid off. Computational problems all went well, except for the one where I couldn't remember what the hell Nu_s was, which I solved symbolically instead. In accordance with longstanding tradition, my conceptual question responses were pretty effing weak, and I didn't manage to do the extra credit project, but whatever. It's over.

Also: Professor Heat Xfer was 20+ minutes late to his own final. This is my not-impressed face.

Working on my Honors Thesis Proposal now. Later, packing ALL THE THINGS, and Avenger Prequel Movie Night.

...I saw "The Avengers" on Tuesday, but that's a whole lot of keyboard smashing for another time.

...So I may have just stayed up literally all night reading ALL THE HUNGER GAMES. As in, started at 11:00 PM on Sunday and just finished as of post timestamp minus fifteen minutes.

This may not have been the best plan, because now I have thoughts and feelings and stuff about them, and also I have class at 8:30 and haven't slept and yet it somehow seems like the best idea ever to be telling dreamwidth all about this mess instead of showering or caffeinating or some other productive thing.

Today, I do not win at being a responsible pseudoadult.

Well, the Anatomy final felt like it went neither better nor worse than the other two exams in that course, so I guess we'll see what shakes out.

Final grade for Materials came through: B. I have no complaints. Frankly, I feel like that's a little generous based on my performance, but hey, I'll take it.

To Do List, 12/15/11:

Sleep in
Clean room
Clean desk
Sort laundry
Launder laundry
Check for grades
Update DW/LJ
Feed myself
Study for Fluids Final

Why hello there, displacement activity. At least all of these things did actually need to get done today.

But it's almost over. One more evening of studying, one more exam tomorrow morning, and then I'm done with this semester. I'm thinking lunch and "Action Holmes II: The Fanservicing"* with The Boy to celebrate.

*Alternate release title: "Action Holmes II: Action Harder"

Edit: As of midnight, I have laundered ALL THE THINGS, had the last school-catered meal of the semester with The Boy, and studied.

So far today, I have slept for thirteen hours and read almost a chapter of material (out of four that will be covered) for one of tomorrow's two exams. Well, shit.

( But I also got email from Professor Circuits. )

So that's something I don't have to worry about, and now I have twice as much time to study for the Anatomy final. Which is nice, because the central nervous system is really freaking complicated.

Materials and Fluids Lab tomorrow, Circuits on Monday never, Anatomy on Wednesday night, and Fluids on Friday morning. Not half bad, as finals schedules go... provided I can pull the finger out and finish studying for tomorrow.

...So I feel like I pwned the Mechanics of Solids exam right in its strictly notional face, but I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. My habitual pessimism says bad bad bad oh noes!, but common sense suggests otherwise.

Moving right along, Differential Equations tomorrow, then done. Have failed spectacularly at studying, so will be getting up early to remedy that. Fortunately, the exam is open-book and open-notes, with plenty of time to think. Not an excuse not to study, but it does make tomorrow's heroic studython more of a strategically targeted review than an exercise in frantic memorization.

I love it when professors concede that in real life, we get reference books, so we might as well devote brainpower to technique and cleverness rather than brute-force memorization of trivia. I would have done so much better at Calculus if I had been able to focus on what it all meant, rather than freaking out about memorizing ALL OF THE TRIGONOMETRIC AND HYPERBOLIC IDENTITIES FOREVER (all of which, of course, I promptly forgot after the final, every damn time).

Early grades are trickling in; looking good so far. Diff. Eq. is the one exam most likely to kick me in the teeth, which is, of course, why I'm slacking off studying for it and staying up to whine about it on LJ the night before. I'm awesome at this "responsibility" thing, aren't I?

Dynamics at 10:30 this morning, now finished (obv).

Back in the computer lab again (again), fixing the fixed version of the extra credit Mechanics of Solids assignment that ate yesterday.

Presenting the shitty group project for SolidWorks at 1:30, and then, with luck, I'll never have to work with them again.