Checksum Arcanius

The 2006 FIRST Robotics Competition Chamipnship is this week. I leave tomorrow, Wednesday the 26th of April, at 1:30pm for Atlanta, Georgia, where the competition is being held. This means I am missing almost three entire days of class (I’ll make my one Wednesday Morning class). Unfortunately, this is pretty much the worst time ever for me to be gone, as I am also gone during two scheduled midterms, a three-hour lab, two three homework deadlines, the Engineering Open house, and a Men’s frisbee game. So I have been hard at work getting everything that I can done before I leave. One midterm I’m taking early, sandwhiched between my Wednesday morning class and my drive down to the airport (thanks, Mom!). The other midterm I’m taking as soon as I get back, which is the same day as a third midterm, which I am missing the review session for. The homeworks I’ll be turning in tomorrow — although I have yet to finish two of them! Fortunately, Microvision remains very flexible with me and I have tomorrow off (usually an 8-10 hour day) so I can get all of my stuff done for this trip. Speaking of tomorrow, since I’ll be missing my bioengineering lab on Thursday, I’m helping set of for this week’s lab tomorrow mornign. Oh, I’ll also be writing the report for last week’s lab sometime tomorrow or wednesday, and I’ll probablly submit it electronically from Atlanta.

Fun times.

Mariners 6, Angels 4
Mariners 0, Athletics 3
SML/NJ 1, Ryan 0

Two games attended and one CSE assignment not yet done

The Daily, the University of Washington’s student newspaper, published a letter to the editor that I wrote — somewhat to my surprise.

The most interesting thing, perhaps, is that the title “Discrimination a sad fact of life” — is not mine (it was added by the editor). Also interesting is that I toned down the rhetoric quite a bit (ie, “as worthy as his cause may be”) to have a chance of being published — which is exactly the issue I was talking about.

The letter, published as far as I can tell in its entirety:

Discrimination a sad fact of life

“UW obligated to allow military recruitment on campus despite discriminatory policies against gays.” For me, this begs the question, is the UW also obligated to allow liberal professors on campus despite discriminatory policies against conservatives? This might explain why I, like many gays, always shy away from telling people what I really am and who I really voted for.

Although my experience here at the UW is limited (I am a transfer student), I have encountered through my years in the educational establishment several occasions where my grade was lowered for reasons that can only amount to political disagreements with professors.

I also know that my experience is not isolated, as many of my friends have reported similar abuses here at the UW and at other universities. I see this as a civil liberties issue. I feel that I am not free to express myself in this “you can hold any opinion as long as it agrees with mine” environment upheld by much of the faculty and student body.

When all discrimination — even “politically correct” discrimination like I face — is taken as seriously as the military’s discrimination against gays, maybe then we can have work on real solutions to the issue.

Until then, I can’t help but think of crusaders like Bryce McKibben — as worthy as their cause may be — as nothing more than political hacks, unable to see the forest through the trees.

— Ryan McElroy, Senior, bioengineering and computer enginering

Props to Hannah for letting me know it happened.

It seems odd, perhaps, that duing my spring break every post was about school. But considering what the next two years look like or me, perhaps it is appropriate. Basically, the 2008 graduation plan has me, with a few exceptions, taking 16 credits every quarter that generally consist of two Bioengineering classes and two CSE classes. It should be intense to say the least.

Certainly, Biology is a big disappointment — there is no good reason for me to have not gotten a high 3.x in that class. I am pretty much happy with everythign else, though I do think I could have pulled off 4.0’s in the two 3.8 classes had I been a little more motivated and a little more on top of things. Not a bumper quarter like last time, and a strong performance in-major I guess means I’m going down the right path so far.

So far my predictions seem to be holding up pretty well — a 3.0 in Chem 238 and a 3.8 in Bioengineering. So I was off by 0.1 grade point between two classes — pretty good in my book. Have I been doing this for too long? Oh yes, I have…