And we all just dissappear
Thanksgiving is getting close. I can feel it. I can almost taste it.
Thanksgiving in my family tends to be a bigger holiday than in most other families, I think. All of my mom's side of the family lives in Southern California, and so we usually all get together for Thanksgiving. My mom has two sisters and a brother. There are 19 cousins (including me and my brothers) on that side of the family, with a large age range. The youngest are still in diapers, and the oldest are married. Needless to say, there's always a lot of people.
We usually get together around noon or 1pm, and start eating at about 1pm or 2pm. After that is a little time to relax and watch football while the food settles, followed by a family game of football at a local park. Finally, we all go back to the house around 5 for dessert, and have pies and other delicious desserts the rest of the night.
I know it's a little bit early to be thinking about Thanksgiving, but I think it is the prospect of a great holiday that will get me through the next week and a half or so. I've got a lot of homework and projects, but it will all be worth it once I get to relax with my family.
One thing you will learn in time: Things are always fine.
So, I've been trying to find more time to play video games. I like playing video games, and I've been playing Fallout 3. However, I've been playing it very slowly. Being a full time student makes it hard to find time.
I've been working on projects, labs and homework, studying for midterms, doing research, and applying for grad schools. However, this last week, my video game time did pick up a little bit.
On that note, several people have asked me if I'm going to pick up a copy of Modern Warfare 2. Well, right now I'm satisfied with Fallout 3. Also, I've never played a Call of Duty game. I imagine that I'll probably play it at some point, but I don't know that I'm going to go out and buy it right away.
These are my thoughts at the moment.
Always up or down, never down and out.
Being sick is no fun. Right now, I have a pretty bad cough and a fever. I've had it since Monday afternoon. I've been trying to avoid class and just rest, but I've had a little homework to doo, and a few classes I haven't felt comfortable missing.
I have a midterm on Friday. I think that my evening tonight will consist of resting and studying. And tomorrow will probably just be resting and studying. I have a busy weekend ahead of me, so I hope I can kick this illness soon.
The price that they’ve paid for the trouble I’ve made.
Oh, goodness. This week has been chugging right along, hasn't it?
I realized on Monday that I really need to get rolling on my applications for graduate school. It's hard to think about stuff that far into the future when you have midterms and whatnot to take care of. But now that midterms are mostly done with, I need to get focused on those applications. They are going to be a lot more work than I originally thought they would be. I'll get them done, though.
Being an engineering student that is involved with a lot of activities and who has many interests can sometimes be a tough balancing act. But it's worth it. I'm glad that I get to pursue my interests. I'm happy that I get to hang out with friends. I'm happy that I get to do hard work as a student and learn lots of crap. It can be tiring, though. I just need to remember why I'm doing everything I'm doing.
On that note, I'm going to go work on a lab assignment.
I hope this song starts a craze.
So, the last few weeks, one of my brothers, my friend Dave, and I have been getting together and jamming. We pretty much decided we are starting a band. We've already written three songs, which is pretty rad.
The only problem right now is that we don't have a drummer. However, this isn't the biggest problem. We have ideas of who our drummer could be. We just need to talk to people.
We are going to have another practice/jam session tonight. I just need to get some homework done beforehand so that I can relax a nd enjoy it. So I should probably stop blogging and start studying and working.
It takes some time.
I feel like I am pretty good at managing my time. I feel like I rarely need to stay up late to finish homework and assignments anymore. That being said, it still happens from time to time.
I went to bed at 2am last night (which may not be late for some of you) after working for about 4 hours straight on a Lab assignment. My lab partner was falling asleep at that time, so we decided to postpone finishing it until today. I forgot to mention: we didn't quite finish. We finished the bulk of our design, but still have some debugging today.
Hopefully we'll be able to crank it out pretty quickly. Sometimes, however, these things just take some time.
A repetitious twist of fate
This week is kind of nice. I have a midterm today and one tomorrow, but they are for music industry classes (I have a music recording minor). Those midterms tend to be a lot more low-key than engineering ones. So I'm not too worried.
Since I had an EE midterm on Friday and one on this upcoming Monday, my EE coursework this week is in sort of a lull. Which is nice. I've been able to hang out with people more, and just relax some.
This morning I had breakfast with my older brother. It was nice to just sit and chat, not worrying about homework or class or anything else. We're going to try to get breakfast together once a week, which I'm excited about.
Tonight, I have a little bit of studying to do. But I think when I'm done with that, I'm going to play some video games. I'm excited.
All the people say it’ll be alright…
What a crazy weekend. I went to a show on Friday as a last-minute thing to see Portugal. The Man, and it was awesome. That band is one of the best live bands I've ever seen. They played for over an hour, and took few breaks, connecting their songs with jams that got everyone in the crowd excited.
On Sunday morning, I saw a sunrise concert at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. I know what you're thinking, "that's crazy!" Well, it was crazy. The doors for the show opened at midnight, and I camped out with some friends (and probably a thousand other people) all night on a big lawn. They had entertainment for us, including projecting the movie Bottle Rocket. The band that played, Bon Iver, started playing about ten minutes before the sun came up. They continued their set into the foggy morning, and again, were a very good live band.
Now that I'm done having fun on the weekend, it's time for me to focus. I have a midterm Friday, and I'm taking the GRE on Saturday. Study time!
Ten Minutes to Downtown is Ten Minutes Too Far
Last night I saw The Get Up Kids. It was a dream fulfilled. They were awesome, and played a great set. I never thought I'd get a chance to see them after they broke up, but I got my chance.
I haven't posted on here in a while long. But I'm back, and will posting more. Especially when the Viterbi blogs switch to a new server...
I've been listening to a lot of music lately. For a while there, I was lazy about listening to new stuff and listened to tons of old junk. I think it was in part because 2008 was kind of a crappy year for new music. But man... this year, this summer... I've been listening to so much new stuff. Stuff that's just new to me, and stuff that's actually new. It's great. I love music.
The Get Up Kids show reinvigorated some of that music love as well. I now find myself wanting to rock out to music all the time. Which I hadn't felt like doing in a long while.