306: Surely it catches up to me eventually

Because I finished the project I needed to get done this week on Wednesday, I didn't really need to do anything in 329, but I had to go because he was discussing the details for the final project in that class, and we split into groups for it. Luckily we got to pick the groups this time, so I'm rockin it with a couple good friends of mine, people that I know will make for great groupmates.

I even had a good idea for it. The final project for that class is totally up to us, and I had the idea to make an RA tracker; a system that I can put on the front and maybe back of my door to keep track of whether I'm in the room or not, and how long I've been there.

The initial idea was to use motion sensors and maybe a check on when the door opens and closes, since it'll be attached. We would then wire up a screen on the outside; displaying when I was last in, or if I'm in the room.

I think the 3 of us can definitely get it working, it'll be really fun to work on it, and if we get it working I may even use it next year.

The title is about the midterm I had in 308: I (allegedly) spent the morning and the time I earned back from 329 (from ~12:45 till ~2) studying for this midterm, but I really didn't study that much, nor that effectively.

It was an open-note test; the only reason I studied at all was that I got a good shout from a friend of mine yesterday about the exam; that it was somewhat of a curveball, and he was right.

I'm just built DIFFERENT. I studied the things that he told me would show up, which made my familiarity with everything pretty good, and made it easier to adapt to the curveball.

I did still have to stew on it for a minute, but I have it on good authority from another friend that I'm literally the only person to have left early (gottem).

The title is in reference to the fact that there is surely a time when I end up actually unprepared, rather than the raw-compute driven compensating that I've been able to do for essentially my whole life. I feel this way about every single freaking test I take at this point (#257), so maybe it's just imposter syndrome and I'm actually really good at this stuff (impossible).

After that midterm I skated home, plugged in my board (I was gonna need it), and got to packing for comp!

I had the EE banquet tonight, which I'd never been to before, but seemed like it would be really really fun. The department does this every year, and I'm friends with a good number of my class, and even a bunch of the seniors and sophomores, so it was a pretty fun social time.

I was right on time, and most people were not, so there was a little bit of faffing about before food, and most of the night was spent on social time, rather than the fancy dinner, but it was a lot of fun. I had some good chats with people I hadn't seen in a while, even a couple professors.

I also got an official award for a scholarship that I won (IEEE PES Scholarship), I wanna say I mentioned it earlier this week because I did the renewal application for next year's (it's a renewing scholarship: goated). It was cool to get called up and handed a big fancy paper, and my friends cheered.

The table I ended up at was the one with all the IEEE people (who'd set up the event), and I am friends with many of those people, so it was fun, but it was also interesting to get the behind-the-scenes look at it all that afforded me.

The food was pretty good too; definitely worth my $25. It was a 3-course meal, a salad, pasta (or steak or salmon), and then a slice of cake for dessert, all of it properly good.

I skated both there and back, which was very fun, but I didn't quite have the battery for it; the board died like 300 meters from Santa Lucia. It was probably around 9 miles total, which is about the range I thought I had, but I do wish it was higher.

I think the elevation change definitely hurt; it was downhill on the way there, and uphill on the way back, which I think would work better the other way. It could just be wishful thinking though.