Bryan’s Web (.net)

This is just a quick post- I have to get home and do some laundry before Christmas starts. Those that know me (everybody that reads this site) know that I’m not very religious, but I enjoy Christmas because I enjoy being with my family.

The New York trip was really fun. The transit strike was a bit annoying, but we dealt with it. And hey, now I can say “I was there for that!” the next time it happens. Because of the strike, we didn’t get to do everything, but that was okay because we still had a great time. Also because of the strike, we did a lot of walking. The last day we were there, which was actually a half-day since we had to catch a bus and then drive home, we walked over 10 miles, or like 160 blocks.

Alright, the first few New York pictures are on the site, the rest of the pictures and some captions should be coming soon, and hopefully I’ll be back to post a longer post about the New York trip before long.

Until then, have a Merry Christmas- and whatever religion you have, enjoy the time off with your family.

**Picture Status Update:**
All NYC Pictures that I wanted to put up are up, but they don’t yet have captions.

I’m leaving for New York tomorrow morning at 7:00. We’ve got a lot we want to see, including:

• Upright Citizen’s Brigade
• The American Natural History Museum (including the Hayden Planetarium)
• Sweeny Todd (Musical)
• FAO Schwarz
• Tiffany & Co
• Guggenheim
• Rockefeller Center
• A Jazz Club
• Chinatown
• A visit with my Aunt Ellen

I don’t know which of those we’ll get to, but I’ve got to wake up early to make sure we leave on time. So, I’m going to bed. Sorry this was such a short post, but I wanted to give an update before we left. Depending on the availability of WiFi in NYC (which there should be plenty of), I’ll try to post some pictures and stuff while we’re there.

Also, some things I wanted to mention. Have you seen The Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams? It’s both funny and informative. Also, John Spencer died. I’m a huge West Wing fan, and can’t help but say RIP Leo.

On a lighter note, I can’t believe there is only a week until Christmas! Happy Holidays!

I am done with finals. I’d like to say something that exactly expresses the relief I feel to know that finals are over, but I don’t know how to put it. Perhaps “W00t” is a start.

• Monday. German 102 Final. Even though this is a 100-level course, the whole final was in a foreign language! Bad jokes aside, I needed to do some studying for this. I’d done okay throughout the quarter, but I didn’t think that I’d done well enough on some of the review exercises we did in class. The exam was at 11:30, but after studying the night before I was on campus at 8:30 to meet with some of the guys from my class and review some more. It was somewhat helpful to run some things by the other guys, but the studying I did the night before helped me the most. The final seemed to go well, but the essay at the end left me wondering what to say. It had to be 80 words, and it was supposed to be a letter to an old german lady, and you had to write it in the past tense. My problem with that wasn’t with my german, it was just thinking of things to say in general. They gave you an interview with her to take in formation from, and all I could think of saying were things like “I like video games, but you didn’t have them.” or “Did you play cards? I played cards.” or “You like dancing, and last weekend I danced”. It was a stupid topic.
• Tuesday. No Final. But I did go to work from 8:30 until 3:30.
• Wednesday. Computer Science and Engineering 681 Final. I knew my stuff pretty well in this, and I had done well on all of the labs (my lowest lab grade was 92/100). The professor said that most of the grade would come from the labs, so I wasn’t too worried about it. I spent most of my study time tuesday night going over the notes from the class, doing the last homework that was due on exam day, and then stayed up until 2:30 working on extra credit (rendered pictures are up in the gallery), which I’ve e-mailed to him and haven’t gotten a response. I don’t think he’s going to count it. Luckily, I shouldn’t need it. I think I did well on my exam. Anyway, the final was at 7:30, which means I was up at 5:30, so I had only 3 hours of sleep. I went to work after the final, but went home around 12:30 and went right to sleep. Luckily the university is really flexible with student employee hours during finals week.
• Thursday. Math 547 Final. I woke up from my nap around 5:30 wednesday, ate some dinner, and then got to studying for my Math final. I knew that it would be my hardest final, and I had only done so-so in the class up until that point. I got a 75% on the first midterm (I was 4th highest in the class), a 25% on the second midterm (which was not as far below the average as it appears), and had only done fairly well on the homework. So I made sure that I got to bed on time to wake up at 5:30, since this exam was at 7:30 as well. I dropped down into this class from Math 651 around the time of the first midterm, so I didn’t really know the other class members very well, but before the professor got to the final, I was listening to the other students talk about how hard his proofs were to understand, and many of them said they were retaking the class. So that made me feel better, especially since 90% of the people in this class were math majors. When I got the final, it was much like the midterms, with only 4 problems, each worth 25%. I did well on the first 3 problems, and got stuck on the last one. I spent an hour on that last problem, and couldn’t get it, so in the last 5 minutes I just wrote something down. I hadn’t studied that section as much as the one before it, since we spent more time on the section before it and those problems were usually much harder for me (it turns out there were none of those types of problems on the final). After I turned in the exam I looked in the book and discovered that what I had written down was wrong. So was worried about it at work all day. I thought I would be lucky to pull a C, and if I didn’t get at least a C- I wouldn’t get my math minor. Right before I left work I checked to see if any grades had been posted, and my math grade was. I got a B+.
• Friday. Today. No Final. Last night, after I left work I went to my grandma’s to help her put up her tree, and enjoyed the first real snow of the year as I put up her outside lights. After that we went out for pizza, and then I went home, watched some TV, and went to sleep. I had told work that I’d be in late today, so I slept in, got something to eat, and came in to work around 12:30. Finally, I feel like I can relax and enjoy the holidays.

Frosted window panes
Candles gleaming inside
Painted candy canes on the tree
Santa’s on his way
He’s filled his sleigh with things
Things for you and for me