Checksum Arcanius

I’m sitting in the Las Vegas airport using the free Wi-Fi, having just completed my CSE 143 assignment due a week from today. It was assigned today, and really I had it 95% done before I got here (coding on the airplane), and the test code (which turned up just one issue in my code) actually took longer to write than the class itself. Hopefully things get a little more challenging in this class.

In about ten minutes I’ll be boarding a red eye flight to Baltimore. I’m headed there for another cousin’s wedding — this time it’s the brother of the famous Italian wedding cousin. My choice of flights will allow me to not miss class. On the other hand, I’m flying all night and I get back to Sea-Tac at 2:27am on Monday. Mad props to Dan for being crazy and agreeing to pick me up at that hour (I tell him its good spy training).

In other news, I’m being tempted by the slot machines, and my Chemical Engineering 260 — Thermodynamics class is going to be entirely plug-and-chug, without many concepts. That has me bummed. I guess I should have done more research before signing up for a class specialized for non majors. At any rate, it makes me really appreciate BYU’s open enrollment major-track and honor-track courses. Here at the UW, you have to be in the proper program or get special permission for those.

Took the parents to the airport this morning, then drove straight up I-5 to school, got to class ten minutes late, paid some attention, talked to the TA briefly, then headed to work, worked straight through lunch eating only a few things from the vending machine then left work about 6:40, hit up the Puget Sound Blood Center for a walk-in donation, met a nice girl going to the UW (but curses on me, I didn’t find out any more), left just after 8, hit up Costco Gasoline at about 8:30, then deposited a check from work (reimbursement for my trip to Portland), then headed home, played a little bit of DoD:S (a very well-made game, I might add) to blow off the steam, then ate my first real food of the day (beef, rolls, and cheese, mmmm), submitted my CSE 143 assignment online, and then wrote this blog – and yes this is a run on sentence, just like my day.

Leaving work at a quarter past ten this evening, I came across a rabbit sitting in the same place as I saw one when leaving work about the same time last night.The rabbit last night was almost completely unphazed by me – it simply sat still, ambling uninterestedly away when I made a few mock threatening gestures in its directions. The rabbit tonight, however, made sure to put some distance between itself and me as soon as it saw that I was coming in its direction. Intrigued, I followed the rabbit past my vehicle to the side of the building. The rabbit got the idea, and began traveling faster. I decided to run. It finally lost me by the time it had traveled 3/4 the way around the building, but only because the bushes are thick back there and I wanted to go home more than I wanted to continue pestering the rabbit.

I really need to learn how to sleep.

My first day as as a University of Washington Husky began as a glorious late September morning in Seattle. The sun was showing signs of life, yet the air was cool and the lingering clouds made it clear they they would not easily relinquish their rule from the night.

I awoke earlier than normal, unaccustomed to the morning cross-bridge commute and expecting the worst. My preparations took longer than expected, but the commute was shorter than expected. I traveled across the I-90 bridge, then up I-5 to the Montlake E-1 parking area. I was additionally pleasantly surprised to find that, with my Husky Card, parking cost only $2.62 for the whole day. Clearly, I had not researched this process very well.
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Glorious News From the Front: Not All Cops Are Jerks!

While driving to Portland in a rented vehicle that I wasn’t even supposed to be driving, I got pulled over for doing 80 in a 70 that had moments ago been a 75. Amazingly, the cop who pulled me over checked my records quickly, told me he wasn’t giving me a ticket, advised me to use cruise control, and sent me on my way. He never once threatened to arrest me, he didn’t call me names, and he never went into psycho-cop-power-trip mode. It was actually a pleasant experience, except for the initial realization that he was coming after me.

The corallary to all of this is I am now in Portland, on my second ever business trip.

In some minor ways, particularly narcissistic ones, I am a bit of a packrat. Occasionally, the habit pays off, however. When I went to the UW on Wednesday to be advised, I learned, much to my dismay, that despite all of my credits being transfered, very few of them transfered to anything specific or useful. For example, my Physics 121, 220 (formerly 122), and 123 courses turned into generic “UW 1XX” and “UW 2XX” credit. Great if I’m looking for credits, but useless if I want to take any more physics classes. That example is especially vexing because the courses are, as near as I can tell, exact equivalents of UW’s Physics 121, 122, and 123.

However, the problem does not stop there; rather it is systematic: My Math 112H and 113H classes at BYU turned into only 124 and 125, even though both classes are 4 semester credits and cover everything in the three UW 124-125-126 series. But I’m not resting on that laurel alone – I also took Math 227, Multivariable Calculus, as BCC. This, if anything, was my sole weak point in completing the 124-125-126 series. So I have certainly covered the material. Furthermore, I took Math 208 and 238 at BCC, which translated into 300 level classes at UW, both of which require Math 126. So I have credit for classes that I am not allowed to take, because I haven’t fulfilled the 126 prerequisite. The same story is repeated for Computer Science (BYU’s CS 142 is exactly the same thing, as near as I can tell, to UW’s CS 142), Biology (I took major-course Microbiology at BYU, along with Biology 250 at BYU, yet I don’t have credit for Biology 180 yet), and Chemistry (I took major-course Chem 111H and 112 at BYU, which cover at least UW Chem 142 & 152, and I would argue, 162 as well, since the next step at BYU is OChem [I took 351 and got credit for it at the UW], and at UW, OChem comes after 162, so once again I have credit for a class that I can’t take yet due to prerequisites not matching up).

My Bioengineering adviser informed me that she thought the credit evaluator was having a bad day or was being lazy, but the result was that I would have to go around to each of the departments where I am seeking credit and talk to advisers there. I talked to several after my advising, and discovered that they wanted to see course syllabuses before making a decision.

Finally, to bring this article full circle, I just happen to still have every syllabus from every college class I have ever taken. There is yet hope that Ryan will be a Bioengineer and not an English major. Sometimes, being a narcissistic pack rat pays off.