Sharan Volin

The teacher just e-mailed that I got a C- in Calculus 3! That's better than I expected, so hopefully it won't hurt my GPA TOO much. That's a relief! So I'm now officially done with any and all Calculus, theoretically forever:).

Oh, and if I didn't already have a purple one I'd definitely been trying to find out where to get my hands on one of these.

*Gasping for breath as I come up for air*

Well, my last final was yesterday so I'm FINALLY done! I now get around 4 nice, relaxing weeks of JUST working full time. Damn, I needed a break.

Now I just have to wait to find out my grades. Unfortunately the calculus final didn't go too well (there was just too much to remember and I forgot a lot even after being up most of the night before studying) and since I blew the first midterm I don't know if I passed the class. I did really well on Midterm 2 and most of the quizzes, at least, so there's at least some hope. I found out all I need is a D- to not have to retake it, which is all I care about at this point. Did I mention how much I hate math?;)

Well, I knew the 4.0 GPA my first semester was too good to last. And so much for honor societies. That last one e-mailed me at the last minute that they found out they could only admit Computer Science/Computer Engineering majors, NOT just Computer Science ones, and the Computer Science one they recommended had a web site that hadn't been updated since 2002 and is now giving 403 forbidden errors, so my guess is they're totally defunct.

I also have no clue how I did on the final I took yesterday, but then I've learned over the semester that it's not so much a case of knowing what we did as knowing how to read the teacher's mind. Hopefully I learned enough of that from the midterm to get by on this one, but I won't know for sure until I see my grade. But I won't get into that here since I still have to take at least 2-3 more required classes with this same teacher:(.

Even the one class I KNOW I did really well in (Electrical Engineering) hasn't posted the final grades yet.:( And that was the first final I took.

That's me falling over from exhaustion. This has not been an easy semester, even after dropping that class. The good news is I managed to not blow the 2nd Calculus 3 midterm today, so it looks like I shouldn't have to drop that class too after all. I think I did pretty well, actually. I'll find out for sure next week when we get the midterms back.

I also went to a meeting today about the Engineering Honor Society, HKN (replace with appropriate Greek letters). I have an interview with them tomorrow and if all goes well the initiation is next Wednesday. I just have to get over my innate distrust of organizations with 3 greek letter names and remind myself it's an honor society, NOT a sorority;). Besides, it's got guys and girls and it's for smart Engineering/Computer majors (and we all know a lot of us Computer/Engineering types are geeks) so it can't possibly be a sorority:).

It's going to be a LONG week. chythar and I trekked all the way down to Irvine yesterday to go to Gigantour (please excuse the godawful, poorly designed, all-Flash website). If Symphony X wasn't there I would never have gone (Irvine is NOT Los Angeles. It's an hour south of here! More if you hit traffic, but we got lucky). If I hadn't bought the tickets in advance I might still not have gone since I had so much Calculus work to do. But I knew no matter how much I resented the lost time I'd wind up enjoying it, so I went.

I hope to eventually do a more complete review here or on Rockers Online later, although given my current schedule I can't even guarantee I'll get to it:(. But the short form is: Symphony X were great (and as usual really nice guys!). I wasn't expecting to get a chance to talk to them again at such a big place, but I did. In fact before they went on I saw Michael Romeo behind the stage and waved, and he got Russell Allen who waved to me. I think they picked up a bunch of new fans at the show. The autographing line for them after their set was REALLY long! Dream Theater were also great (the highlight of the show had to be "Home" which they played just before they left the stage before their encore ("Pull Me Under"). I was starting to wonder when they were going to play anything from "Scenes from a Memory" when they started that, which is one of my favorites from that album! Everyone else I could have easily passed on, which I pretty much figured. I would have left early but chythar wanted to see Megadeth, and since I'd never heard them before I figured I should at least see what the big deal was. I only wish it were still light out them since if I could have seen I would have been studying when they were on. Instead I settled for playing games on my N-Gage QD and Clie. No, I wasn't that impressed, although there were moments when they sounded pretty good. I think a lot of it is the vocals, since that can make or break a band for me. I prefer singers with great voices, like Russell Allen, James LaBrie, John Wetton, Joe Lynn Turner, Dan Huff, etc.

The show ended at 10:30 so I was home before midnight, but I still didn't get to bed until 1am. I even fell back asleep for an hour this morning, but I'm still exhausted. I'm going to be drinking a lot of Dr. Pepper this week, since I have no way of catching up on the lost sleep, and since I'm probably going to get the usual 5-6 hours sleep a night it's only going to get worse.

Oh, and they didn't seem to care about cameras at the show, but guess what they had a problem with? Aleve:P I carry some around in my pocketbook all the time, and they gave me a hard time. I didn't want to go back to the car and risk going through again and someone noticing the camera on my Sony Clie and complaining about THAT, so they taped it up and put my name on it and said I could get it on my way out. So I asked on the way out and they said "Oh, that's probably in First Aid" which was all the way back down through the crowd by the stage, and I was already at the exit. It must be a scam to get free supplies for their first aid booth, since I knew I couldn't make Chythar wait while I went all the way back. I'm really annoyed since I'm not anywhere near a supermarket or drug store anymore, so getting a replacement is going to be a huge pain with my schedule:(. And when I need Aleve I REALLY need it!

And no, I didn't get my math homework done:(. I guess I know what I'm doing during lunch today (if I can stay awake long enough). I missed a BBQ Saturday to stay home and study but it wasn't enough. Only 3 weeks left in this class and I SERIOUSLY can't wait for it to finally be over!