To wrap it all up, the new bar in West Campus, Cuatros, was playing some very chill summer music… and then (in the most cliché way imaginable) two midriff-bearing and very cute girls run by listening to their iPods. It was like the beginning scene to some shitty summer movie… where an impossibly high number of interesting things happen in sync along the main character’s path for 5 minutes while nothing important occurs so the movie can have the intro credits roll.

Of course, this picturesque scene was rudely interrupted by my own annoyingly acute awareness that I have two finals left to take before I can even remotely pretend it’s really summer. The jarring context switch that was falling out of my day-dreaming state was the mental equivalent of getting sucker-punched in the dick.

Anyway… I’ve got a final in 1.33333333 hours and I’m camped out in an abandoned classroom getting in some last-minute cram time whilst longingly looking out the window at the multi-million-dollar Gregory pool complex. Time to get back to studying…

My sleep schedule will slosh around throughout the week… stretching inevitably towards an unbelievably out-of-phase cycle that might more closely resemble somebody’s day in China than it would a person’s in Austin. Even for a college engineering student, the last glowing digits I see from my alarm clock as I finally get to sleep mockingly remind me how screwed up my circadian rhythms are.

I also eat like shit the majority of the time… and I feel this is largely due to my impressively unpredictable schedule. When you get hungry at 5:30 AM, 90% of the time you’ll end up eating something that exchanges nutritional value for taste and/or ease of preparation. Some days, I’ll realize rather indifferently that I haven’t eaten anything all day, and then proceed to superficially satiate my hunger with some less-than-healthy meal, or half-assedly eat a small snack only to perpetuate my permafucked eating schedule for a few more hours.

My regularly scheduled workout routine from last semester has all been for not… as my infrequent and irregular visits to the gym serve only to unabashedly remind me that I am a fatass.

Yes… I have a shit ton of work to do. Yes, this is the most work I’ve ever had to do for school… ever. But there really isn’t any real reason as to why everything in my life has to been so shitty.

Regardless of the reason, I can only hope that the summer will bring change. Working a 9-to-5 will help regulate my sleep schedule, and unless I want to emerge at the end of August as a fat, pale, all-too-true-to-an-engineer’s-stereotype BITCH… then my fat ass will get in gear at the gym and the pool. With nothing to do besides work, I have no excuse to stand idle and let my life continue to be a chaotic mess of tangled biological absurdities.

The summer (and change) cannot come soon enough.

Four three-hour slots that would be spent hating my life and wishing I had learned more during the semester, as well as hours and hours of studying and cramming at the last minute… times four. Four finals sounds pretty bad.

My VHDL design class has a policy for exempting the final… but I just narrowly missed the requirements. My test average had to be a B or above (check), I had to be making a B or above in the class with all 3 tests averaged in (check), and had to make a B or better on all the tests (whoops… damn you test #2).

So I played the numbers game of making an Excel spreadsheet that let me plug in numbers for my final to see what my semester grade would be. With my average being what it was, and the final only counting 25%, I would make a B in the class if I made anywhere between a 68 and a 100. GREAT.

Anybody in college has experienced the phenomenon of selectively throttling their effort on the final. Basically… the probability of the last test raising your grade a letter should entirely determine the amount of effort you should put into studying. The situation in my VHDL class is a perfect example… when a C on the final will get me the same final grade as a perfect score would… why study my ass off?

I was continuing to dick around in Excel when I got an email from the professor revising the final exemption policy… and it was like music to my ears.

“You are eligible to skip finals if test average is 80 and no more than one test less than 80%.”

SWEET.

And then there were three.

My status? Well, with ¾ of a Red Bull making its way through my guts, I’m continuing to charge ahead into the uncharted territories of compiler code generation and processor pipelining simulation (2 of my 3 final projects). For the last few days, all I have been able to see has been a sea of C-code, expanding before me like a vast and endless ocean of line after line of absolutely unintelligible shit like:

int GetPointerSize (SYMBOL s)
{
   /*
   ** let's hope none of these are null...
   ** or we are completely FUCKED
   */
    return s->datatype->datatype->datatype->size;
}

It’s so hard to even care at this point… with the enticing allure of care-free summer days creeping into my mind, the last week of school seems to be waging a losing battle for my attention.

However, if given a small enough time frame, almost anything can have the appearance of being important. Right now, these projects are consuming my life, and are soon to be followed by four mind-blowingly difficult finals, but 5 years down the line… how much will all of this really matter?

Nevertheless, I’ve got shit to do.

And now that I’ve finished the Red Bull, it’s time to wrap up this post. If Red Bull really gave me wings, I’d fly away from my computer to an island where the only trees are things that grow out of the ground and the only risk for storage leaks comes from old rusty containers.

I hope the lack of nutrition I’ve experienced for the past 2.5 years of my life won’t have any lasting consequences extending past the short term, because all I eat is shit. The usual college limiting factors of time, money, and laziness take their greatest toll on my eating habits (mostly), and I find myself either eating way too little or way too much.

I wonder if there will come a distinct turning point in my life in which the allure of free food will cease to overcome the normal barriers erected between yummy and yucky; because everyone knows that right now, food tastes the best when it’s free.

If you haven’t guessed already from the necker-cube-esque title or the inane preceding paragraphs, this entry has absolutely no point whatsoever.

Continuing:

When I was a kid, I used to love mac and cheese loaded up with black pepper. Ever since then, I have been doing the same, but the amount of pepper required to reach my optimal level of seasoning has increased through the years.

I don’t know if this is indicative that I now have a larger area of taste buds that require more stimulation, or if I have basically fried my gustational abilities by over-saturating them a ridiculous amount of black pepper. My roommates love to think it’s the latter, and give me crap about it.

Anyway, I think I have done enough rambling. Due to cramming for an exam, my sleep schedule is out of phase by just about 180 degrees, so I might be up for a while.

Put more than two engineers in the same room for a short amount of time, and without fail, the conversation will eventually turn into the classic engineering equivalent of a penis length contest.

By that I mean, the untold competition that is having the most amount of shit to do in the next week or so. Example:

“Dude, I’m so fucked. I have a lab on Tuesday and then a test and program on Wednesday.”

“Dude, whatever man. I have three tests on Monday, a lab due Wednesday that I haven’t started, a project due Thursday that my partner won’t do shit on, and then a homework assignment due Friday.”

“You guys have it easy. I broke both of my wrists and have to type with my  toes now, my computer crashed, my apartment burned down, and I have 4 tests next week and 3 programming assignments.”

Of course, at some point a business major might chime in about how he has “work” to do that is “hard”.

However, everyone will eventually stop laughing at him and continue with their discussion as normal.

Part I: Anita

While trudging along on the 20-minute walk to school, I decided to call my friend Anita to see what she was up to. She told me that she was in the hospital after getting in a car wreck on the way to school, she even told me the details and that she broke her arm… etc. etc. I went as far as trying to console her and make her feel better, and thinking about how I could skip work that night to go visit.

“April Fools!!!!”

I suck at life!! And if that wasn’t dumb enough…

Part II: Suzie

Later that day, I called my friend Suzie to make sure she was still good to work out that night. She sounded really upset and starting saying that she wish she could, but shes having some money problems with the new house she’s trying to get for next semester. She said her checked bounced and the bank screwed something up, so she has to to work that out. Poor Suzie!

Again, I completely fell for it and started telling her that I know how frustrating that sort of stuff can be, but I’m sure that she’ll get it all worked out.

“April Fools!!!!”

Again, I suck at life. After getting done a second time that day, I let a string of dammits shits and fucks go un-restricted on a crowded part of campus. Of course a few people gave me concerned and/or scared looks, but they had no way of knowing the pain and agony of getting OWNED by two of your best friends on April fool’s day.

Moral of the story? NEVER forgot about April 1st!!! And never let your guard down.

Ever.

Temporarily spared from waking up at any certain time (mostly), from walking 20 minutes to class, and from sitting in long lectures meagerly listening and longing to do…

Nothing.

Of course I ought to be doing… something. Like said projects, homework, and assignments… but there’s just something very therapeutically relaxing about just forgetting all that stuff and taking in the moment.

New Orleans has been awesome so far. I haven’t taken any pictures at all unfortunately, but even without the proof I have been having a badass time. In a few hours, I’m going to a craw fish broil, and then Nicolle’s orchestra concert tonight. They’ll be playing Beethoven’s Fifth (sweet).

So I will continue to hold on doing nothing for as long as I can, because at some point, I will eventually have to start doing something.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.”

This of course referring to the fact that in times of great need, the demand for innovation and scientific development swells to try and compensate for whatever society is needing.

A lesser-know variant is “Boredom is the father of innovation”. For some reason, given 2 or more bored people in an enclosed space, it is almost guaranteed that somebody will come up with a stupid game. Examples:

Water Jousting

While bouncing around a foam ball one day, my roommate and I had the brilliant idea of creating the exhilarating game of water jousting. To play, fill a cup about half-way full with water, and place it on the very edge of the counter (a bar-like counter), and take turns trying to knock the cup over by bouncing the ball off the floor.

The fun part? The person not trying to knock over the cup stands directly behind it, ensuring that if the other player successfully hits the cup, the loser gets soaked. The best part? Its also the loser that has to clean up the floor afterward.

Shuffle Phone

This game came about on a slow night during tutoring. At work, all the tutors sit around a huge conference table until a student comes in that needs help. When not many students showed up, some of the guys had the bright idea to play “shuffle phone”. Exactly like shuffleboard, except you use your phone instead of a puck, and there’s just a target circle drawn in pencil in the middle of the table. The winner walks away with pride, honor, and a phone that’s scratched as hell.

That was one of the few times in my life that I wish I had a shitbox of a phone so I could have participated…

Plate Frisbee

As another game born from late night boredom with a roommate, this example is illustrative of how even while doing work, you can still have fun. While emptying the dishwasher, we were tag-teaming the plates… but instead of just placing them back in the cabinet (boring), I found it significantly more entertaining to try an under-the-leg Frisbee toss to put them up.

It’s a lot harder than it sounds (think about the angles), and it soon became competitive. Especially with the glass dishes.

Omega

The classic boredom game, I actually got this from an episode of Malcolm In The Middle (though I’ve heard the game dates back even before the show, and is known as “The Circle Game”).

The aggressor makes the “OK” sign with his index and thumb touching, with the rest of the fingers extended. If he holds that hand below his waist and somebody else looks (the victim), then the aggressor gets to punch the victim without fear of retaliation.

I’ve been playing this game with my equally-immature friends of mine since the 8th grade, and the game has since exploded into something much more serious. With rules and regulations, as well as advanced moves such as the Around the World, the Gravy Train, the Solid Snake, and the Willy Wonka… the game only gets deeper and deeper.

I’m sure there have been plenty more, and there’s no doubt in my mind that there will be plenty more to come.

This might seem pretty awful, and sometimes (usually) it is, but personally, I tend to completely zone out and focus only on the task at hand. Its easier for me to do things in large chunks of time and remain focused than it is to break it up over small periods. There happens to be a very serious downside though:

I turn into a computer zombie.

With hours straight of doing nothing but code/compile/debug/repeat, my brain seems to shutdown all other rudimentary functions. Basic conversation skills seem to escape me, and social interactions begin to approach the awkward stage.

It’s almost like the feeling of riding a roller coaster and getting off… after you get off, you still feels like your ass is flying around the track. Computer Zombie Mode is very similar… it takes a few moments to re-calibrate my reality. Example:

“I sure worked up an appetite writing all that code! Time to make a sandwich. Shit no bread! I better throw an exception! Time to write an error handler…”

Of course if I had be writing for one my C classes, I would make the sandwich anyway with invalid pointers to my bread slices on accident. My first bite would result in a mouthful of segfaults followed by me vomiting all over the place.

Luckily it doesn’t usually take long to get back to the real world. So barring a few semi-awkward initial conversations and distorted thought patterns, it’s a relatively painless process.

For those you of you unaware, I feel compelled to tell the sad tale of how I ended up going to Eastfield (~23 miles roundtrip) instead of Richland (~16 miles roundtrip).

It was my first day at Richland… I had printed out a map of the campus and my schedule off the internet…. and I was ready to go. I got there early too…. so I wouldn’t have to worry about finding my class. My classroom was N212… So I found the N building…. but apparently room 212 doesn’t exist! WTF mate? So I asked around and somebody told me there’s a government class in 210, “It was probably just a misprint”, somebody suggested.

So I sat in the class and when the teacher came and announced that this was a government 1 class (I was supposed to be in government 2), I realized I had screwed up.

So during break I went to the registrar and told them about my situation, and a large woman asked what room number my class was supposedly in. After I told her… she gave me a funny look and said, “Nope… there’s no room with that number here. What’s your professor’s name?”

After I told her I got another really weird look. She typed it into the computer and squinted at the screen to make sure she was reading it correctly. Then she told me, “Hun, that professor teaches at Eastfield. You’re at the wrong college…” Shit!

I must have accidentally registered at Eastfield somehow… even though my second summer semester was all set for Richland. Go figure!

But now I’m done and will be attending Richland, and saving an ass-load on gas money too. Lesson learned.

I guess I should be more aware of the subtle clues I seemed to get. For example… next to my class room number there was “EFC” printed. What does that mean??? I had no idea until I realized it stood, of course, for “Eastfield College.” Whoops!

So spring break came and went… and it was awesome. I could go on and on about how extremely amazing it was to spend 5 days with my best friend and just relax and catch up, but I’m pretty sure I couldn’t accurately portray how perfect this break was. SO I won’t even try.

Something I CAN talk about is the nastiness that is the post-spring-break blues.

Here at UT we’re done with holidays and breaks, so everyone has one more round of midterms and then the oh-so-dreaded finals week standing in front of the beloved freedom of summer. There’s nothing like doing nothing for 9 days only to be hit hard by the realization that “OH SHIT! It’s not summer yet!”

It seems now that everyone is just drudging on long from one homework to the next, murmuring “man I can’t wait until this class is over…” and anxiously awaiting summer to get here. What a nasty feeling!

Summer can’t get here soon enough.