2010-09-29

Halfway through the first whole week. Friday of last week I had Math 20C (calculus) and CSE 20. The math teacher has what I am guessing is an Australian accent. At first I was not impressed. I don't like when teachers start talking about themselves or get all excited about something mildly interesting that happens in math and then make a dumb joke out of it. But by now I've had 3 classes with him and he's actually pretty cool; I was just being too judgmental. He wears badass mismatched socks. We are learning about vectors and it is still pretty easy. Then there is CSE 20 which is part of the computer science curriculum but it is not a programming class but a math class designed to prepare me for advanced mathematical/logical programing. We're studying propositional logic and it's really cool! Although we go a little slowly sometimes. It will get though soon though - that's the word on the street. So there is discussion on top of lectures and I went to my first discussion yesterday at 18:00. The teacher aide went to the wrong building leaving it up to me to teach for the first 25 minutes. I attempted to answer people's questions but I wasn't very good at explaining things. There was an old guy in the room and when I started teaching he left as if to avoid the insult of a novice student ---i don't know how to finish this sentence. Anyways. I got sick two or three days ago, but I've still been able to run every day Strides commenced and the sickness did not adversely affect my performance. I just slept between classes and now I'm basically over it. Though I have less time to explore campus and hang out now that I have homework, I am still enjoying life!! I have a CSE 20 discussion at 13-13:50, Strides at 16:15, and CHEM6A discussion from 18-18:50. I have plans to go to dinner with the almighty Carrie McFarland (from my building Meteor) at 19:00, who must be at tennis by 20:00. She is tough and always down to exercise, rendering her awesome. I played racquetball with her once. Random side note of the day is that I enjoy introducing myself to people in CSE 20 and to other CS majors because I am a punk freshman and when people ask what computer science classes I've taken I just say this one (cse20), because I have HS credit for CSE 11 and I petitioned out of 12. Everyone else is a sophomore or transfer student. ;). Did I mention I've already done my own laundry? Well I have. Washed my socks on white but they have blue lining and now the socks are blue and white but that's pretty much it and they're just socks. I also made Trader Joe's mac and cheese with my suitemate's microwave and my friend's roomate's spoon...hah. It was 22:00 and the dining halls close at 20. There is going to be less and less to say with time as the days approach routine.

College Days 5 and 6

Yesterday: went for a run with Lauren and Andrei since Strides was not running (see running log on alexsapps.com.) After eating at Muir we went to Lauren's room and I ate half of one of her gigantic peanut butter cups from some chocolate factory. Got her email problems fixed up and kind of in return I got a sufficiently long Ethernet cable (for internet) for my roommate to use. Lauren would not accept cash payment for the cable because she is too cool. We were going to go to the bookstore to buy stuff but I for some reason ended up not going... I think I got sidetracked. Well for the next couple hours here is what I was working on. If you are not interested in a technical story skip the next paragraph.

ResNet is in charge of providing internet services to people in dorms. Everyone go connects a device to their network gets it registered, and then the device has a campus IP address that is exposed to the Internet, and then we get a hostname. Mine is a5taylor-res.resnet.ucsd.edu. Wireless printers can be registered to the network too, but if they are then anyone in the world can print to your wireless printer. For this reason, ResNet strongly recommends you use your USB cable to print to your wireless printer and that you disable the wireless feature. This does not work out well for me, because now only my roommate can print to his printer. The best solution would be to enable password protected file and printer sharing on the computer, and set security permissions on the printer to allow only authenticated users to print. File and printer sharing uses the SMB protocol, which uses port 445. Sadly, this incoming port is blocked by ResNet, so this option is out. The workaround is me!!!! I developed a website application that allows you enter a username and password and then to upload a document (.prn) and it will print the files that are uploaded to it. Can't host the website on port 80 because that port is also blocked. So when installed, the URL will look something like http://a5taylor-res.resnet.ucsd.edu:60080/AAWebPrinter/ . To use it, you have to install the driver for the remote printer. Try to print like normal, but choose Print To File before you hit the last OK button. Save the file and upload it to the website on the host computer with the printer and AAWebPrinter installed, and it will print! Soon roommates shall be able to share their printer with any of their friends by giving out a password, but only if they have a professional or ultimate version of Windows XP or later.

I am trying to remember the order of yesterday's events but it seems a bit convoluted. It doesn't seem like I was talking about things that happened two days ago, but I have evidence that this is not so. Anyways, I went to get a snack at Roger's Place where I can spend up my dining dollars. Bot a box of white cheddar Cheese-Its and the strawberry flavor of Hi-Chew, which is like Starbursts (this discovery is kudos to Steven). Found Jordon Marvasti as I walked out, and then my suitemates Mark Park, Kevin Park, Greg Kato and Vincent Nguyen, and then this guy Aiden Marshall from Muir College. We went to check out this event called UnOlympics, and some guy was passing out these big boxes of AMP orange energy juice. We think he just wanted to get out of there. So we put the boxes on Jordon's skateboard and stopped by some eating place on the way back to our suite. Then it was just party time for a little while. Tried to start a game of chess with Zack but half way through we were interrupted by ennui and I had to eat before the dining hall closed. Had 2 chicken legs for like $2 each! Suddenly, bedtime confronted me. It didn't work out so well because as soon as I crept into bed my sleepiness began to dissipate. Zack had no sleep place because Steven's friend showed up and they were like sooo going to play this one game and yeah. So we went to Andrei's room and skyped some guy in Pomona and basically did a lot of nothing. Then we returned to our slumbering. Why was I was having trouble sleeping? Well yes classes were to start soon!! Which wasn't very scary or anything. But maybe the party right outside my window had something to do with it. And then we had some visitors hanging out in my suite's common area. People are pretty nice here.

Okay like you wouldn't even know. So I got up for Chem 6A at 8 this morning. Learned NOTHING!!!! It was pretty boring. Class dismissed a few minutes early which was nice because I needed to get over to CSE 12. For pretty much the whole period I was looking up all the topics covered in the upcoming lectures and I knew everything. My patience wore so thin you wouldn't even know. So after class I talked to him - told him I got a 5 on the CSAB exam and heard I am exempt from the class with department approval - and he said he would like to interview me during his office hours. I took the offer up and met him in his office in the CSE building like 30 minutes later. I was IN AND OUT man. It was cool. I introduced him to my programming background - 5 on the AP, make websites with code for my dad's company, been programming since summer before 6th grade. He wanted to take a look at some of my code. I brought my laptop and while it was turning on he was trying to discern my skills in data structures. He brought up Linked Lists and how that would be something I should know. I made it clear that Linked Lists are the simplest of data structures and that I could create a Linked List structure right then. I opened p a notepad document and just banged out the code. Then he asked if I knew about generics - no problem, just banged out the implementation of generics... well he was sold. He said that I might learn a thing or two by taking the class but basically I'm awesome. Didn't strongly recommend that I skip it because it might be nice to take an easy class my first quarter at a university but I was free to go downstairs and get a petition thingy which I filled out and signed. Dr. Kube was the professor by the way. He seemed impressed and he was very nice about it. I am so happy!!! I will now be starting with CSE 20, and I will only have 3 classes this quarter (recommended). I am now basically starting at the Sophomore stage of my major. This warranted a blog entry, so I'm writing this at well it's 15:00 right now. Got to go buy a cable for my roommate and then at 15:45 run with Strides!!

College Day 4

Last night I got back from being in Steven's suite all day and everyone in my suite was chillin with each other and was glad to see me finally. They said to invite them (the Galathea 400 suite) over sometime. Then my room mate Kevin Park had the idea to visit the other suites in our Meteor building. So we went from floor to floor and met fricken everyone. Usually we'd get a few people to come mingling with us. We started on the top (4th floor. there are 2 suites per floor btw) and worked our way down. By the time we finished floor 2 I sneaked away because I didn't want to get off schedule and when the group gets unwieldily large you can't really meet people anymore. So I aslumbered at 12 something but my roommate didn't sleep until 4am. Supposedly after they met the whole suite they all came in to MY suite to just hang and talk. Lucky for me I have [effective] earplugs! Well tonight we did the same thing but earlier and we went much more quickly through the rooms so we'd have time to get to Galathea and even some of Discovery. They assembled in the lounge and did stuff like take a group picture, but no one knew what they were doing and it got boring quickly so I left. Well earlier today I went to the last of two Strides welcome week events. Twas less entertaining this time without Lauren or Zach or Zach's friend Andrei. But I met a graduate student who lives off campus and is bored with the married couples with whom he lives. Then met an electrical engineer and talked to him some, but mostly I just said "oh that's cool" because I couldn't understand half of what he said. Then I had to get over to my computer science and engineering orientation at 12:30. The building was not difficult to locate on Google Maps. I saw and sat next to Andrei, who is majoring in computer engineering. I'm going to run with him tomorrow, and I invited Lauren and Zach who will come too. (Strides isn't running as a group tomorrow.) After the orientation there was free food. (Oh just FYI free food is not free ... it's included - in your fees somewhere. So you need to eat it to get your money's worth. Some resident dean explained that to us. I hope she realized that "to get your money's worth" is NOT a REASON to eat food, either that or I hope she does not vote, which I suppose I'll be doing soon.) Well in the snakey line that I waited in I met the 3 guys behind me. One of them also passed Comp Sci AB with a 5 in HS. He is Scott and his last name is too complicated to remember. I ate so much food there (it was free and all); I hadn't eaten all day and it was 3:30pm. Ate so much I took care of breakfast and lunch at the same time, and then took care of dinner too. Some Goldfish from the room and I was set. At the CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) orientation, I listened to the advisors and I think I'll talk to them about either skipping CSE 12 or dropping CSE 20, because I want to only have 3 classes, which is what they strongly recommend. Also I need to consider studying abroad so hiring companies see that I can adapt to new situations. I also need to register my bike tomorrow between the hours of 11 and 2. Fortunately there are no dumb mandatory welcome week events tomorrow so I should be free to do whatever the goose I want. Oh there was this huge convocation dinner thing but I already had my share of free food and it started before the CSE orientation ended. Then Revelle had this 'Best Night of your Life on Campus' night or something. They had dancing crazy people and a hypnotist.

See here is the thing about college. Ohhhh college is where you are open and convivial and agreeable and active and you participate and get involved blahblahblah. So that means when dumb people dance for you you have to scream in approbation every time a clown touches his nose and it lights up. The truth is I saved a lot of time and energy by NOT watching the hypnotist or making decorative cookies. This energy is transferable to tomorrow where I have free time to interact with people without the help of a hypnotist who can convince people to pretend ... yeah. Also, my room mates think I'm cool for NOT being there on the first day and having better things to do. I can see it in their eyes. I know someone that is trying too hard to change themselves and be confident but just isn't very good at it. Some times people look so stupid I barf right in front of them and it's really embarrassing. Most people here are really cool though. I like how I've learned to be critical and say not what I am expected to say but what I actually think. When we were touring SD, Old Uncle Gramps told me that it's important to make it very clear what you want when I asked how often two people do something that they wouldn't otherwise do just because they thought the other wanted to do it. Something else that helps me improve my social sillz is to picture myself on camera doing the thing that I'm doing right now and imagining what others would think. Of late I have felt pretty stable; it's kinda koo.

College Days 2 and 3 of Many

Yesterday I went for a run and toured the campus for about an hour. Details on the running log (link to the running log is on main page of alexsapps.com). There was a Meteor meeting where we talked about policy and then we went to the cliffs. Twas a short walk there on which I met someone named Brad. Got to my know my RA (room advisor) a little better on the way back. She likes to run too. Nice view of the sun shining through the clouds and reflecting off the water. At night I, my room mate, Steven and 3 of Steven's suite mates went to the cafeteria of the Eleanor Roosevelt college. This college's cafe is superior to that of Revelle. It's a long walk there so we can't eat there all the time. Well I can because I have a bike. But I need to make some friends in Roosevelt to eat there not alone. On the way back we saw the beginnings of the all-campus dance. No one was really interested, but after we got back and I got bored, I biked to the dance and got inside the crowed some and stood around, then left 20 min later after my ears started complaining. Could feel the music vibrating all the way up to my chest. It was intense lookin...just a massive mob of people and crazy lights. Left and went to bed at my bedtime between 22:00 and 23:00.

Day 3. Went for a run at Strides' welcome week event. The leader is cool! Many showed up - would've made a good team. But I didn't see the actual team, just the welcome week attendees. I am sure I will like the club though and hopefully Lauren Waggoner will join with me. I left Lauren to mingle and ran with zack and zack's friend from high school. After the run, zack discovered racquetball on day 1 or 2 with some other friend. He and I went to RIMAC - a gym that is not the main gym - to play. But before we did that we ate at Muir's cafeteria, which was also superior to Revelle's but not as superior as Eleanor Roosevelt's. There we found another guy named Alex. Zack knew him from the wilderness orientation that was just before college started. He played racquetball with us. We were all newbie noobs but it was still so much fun!!!! In all frankness I don't recall having that much fun since like some really extended period of time. On the walk back, Triton Power Hour was going on where there is free food and you can sign up to get information about being on sports teams and other stuff. Then some stuff happened.... I played frisbee with Steven's roommates and then Zack and I checked out a martial arts expo and went on a biking exploration expedition where we got lost and didn't use my iPhone to get us back because we're so above that as expeditioneers. So then we met up Steven's suitemates who had been watching a movie. Zack already saw the movie and I'm not a fan of movies. So we met up and went to Muir to eat there since they had not eaten there, but it was 20:00 by then and they were closed. So we went back to their suite and ordered 2 large pizzas (my idea thanks) and now I'm sitting on the couch after having eaten my share and will soon return to the 4th floor of MY building. Great day.

College Day 1 of Many

First day at UCSD. Finally saw in person my room mate Kevin Park whom I've emailed but never seen. Strange saying good bye to my parents. Mum made my bed for me :) she is nice. Kevin's mum was at work and I had to make his bed for him. He and Steven Buell's room mate do not know how to make a bed. Somehow they've never had a chance to learn how. And to them, the concept of having two components to "sheets" is foreign. Why do you put a sheet on the mattress and then put another redundant sheet on top of that? Well this way you don't have to wash your blanket (which goes on top of the sheets), you see? So we got set up and went to eat at the Revelle cafeteria. Nachos, beans, pasta... didn't know I paid for everything individually - thought the sides came with the pasta but nope! First meal cost $9. That's a lot, but I think I'm fortunate enough to be covered. No one else in our fleet arrived today except David Fitz who came at 4pm (I came at 9am). So our hall is pretty empty right now. But Steven arrived today too and all his fleetmates are here, so I partied with them for a few minutes. Found Lauren Waggoner (also from Foothill) too, and we all hung out. Lauren, Steven, Kevin Park and I just went to dinner at the cafeteria then checked out the adjacent store. Backing up.... Kevin Park, Steven and I were wandering around to find our classes, and we found some of them until Steven went to pick up his books and Kevin and I got distracted and checked out the Giesel Library. Went to the top floor and saw the view, then I went to the almost underground floor and messed with the computers. So yeah. I will be getting to know more people for sure, but today I just caught up with my Foothill chums. Steven's room mate Zachary Lee is awesome. Major is Chemistry but he knows some C++ and he's super nerdy and chill. Met my room advisor Elyse. She's fun. Well I'm almost all set up. Got to find out when the running club called Strides will run tomorrow. I'm having a great time, but I am trying my best to stick with a normal schedule. I have found that I a much easier time meeting people than I originally thought. Only problem is I will have to meet everyone all over again tomorrow because I don't remember anyone's name. Kevin Park doesn't to be adjusting as easily as I am though. I know 2 Revellians from Foothill - Kevin has no one, so he is not to blame. So much to do, so much going on... why can't I be awake every hour of every day? Missing out on almost everything is inevitable. But don't think of it that way. Well...here I am! Not going anywhere. I feel comfortable already. Only nervous about difficulty of classes. Got my textbooks by the way. Kay I'm going to go now bye.