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aka winter break. Ahem, excuse me, Christmas break. (I swear, if i see one more “Holiday tree”…)

So yeah, Christmas break was amazing, if too short (but when isn’t it). After I finished up my classes I spent a couple more days in A2, mostly to hang out with friends and the like. The alpha-numero niner’s Christmas party was actually the weekend before I finished up all of my work, but that didn’t stop me from going. It was a great time, and the nerf arrow war was seriously sweet. I think I have some pictures around here someplace, but it’s easier to just link to Kelsey’s blog, so look at her pictures of it.

I finally got out of A2 on 12/21, and spent the next week at home. Got my Christmas shopping done in one day (woot), and spent a lot of time sitting around and watching TV. Good times. Then the family all came to my place for Christmas, which was nice, because I didn’t have to go anywhere (other than church in the morning). My cousin Amy had gotten a kareoke machine for Christmas, which she of course brought and inflicted on all of us…

And then, the big event of break hit, Indy Christmas Conference! (Also known as Campus Crusade for Christ’s Christmas Conference – CCCCC) All I can say is “WOW!”

Ok, I lied, I can say a lot more than just “wow”. It was seriously amazing. There’s something about having 2500-3000 Christian college students all together that is so awesome that I can barely even describe it. The atmosphere was just totally different than anything I’ve ever experienced before. Spending hours every day being challenged, learning, and worshipping with other students that are so committed is just unbelievable. We had some wonderful speakers, and there wasn’t a single session that I walked out of feeling like I hadn’t gotten anything out of it. It was also a really good chance to hang out with other Michigan Cru(sade) people, getting to know them and having a good time. I have to admit, while I was tired and ready to go home and sleep in my own bed by the end of it, there was a part of me that didn’t want to leave. It was just unbelievably cool. Makes me wish I had gone in years past, but also glad that I chose to go this year.

Anyway, after I got home from IndyCC I spent a few days recovering, sleeping and watching some more TV. All in all, it was a really good break, and just what I needed and wanted.

Ok, enough writing for tonight. Maybe soon I’ll post a real update, about what’s been going on lately.

So I was going to sit down and do part of my homework, under the premise that if I do some of it now, it’ll be less painful later if I don’t have to do it all at once. And then I realized that while I’m sitting on my bed (top bunk), my text book is on the futon. So I decided I’d post an update instead.

Ok, so let’s see here, where was I? Oh yeah, December. In short? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Hmm, that’s probably a little more vague than you were looking for (unless you’re one of the people whose eyes glaze over if I write more than half a page). Ok, here goes…

As previously mentioned (in my December 6th post), all of my final projects were due on 12/13. [Side note: Never, never, never take 3 project classes in one semester. You've been warned.] At least, in theory they were all due by that day. My ME250 project was done and squared away, so at least I didn’t have to worry about that (though there were quite a few hours spent at the end of November and the beginning of December getting it finished up). My EECS373 and 482 projects were another story, however. Despite being started before Thanksgiving (at the prompting of our professors, who warned us that they would take a lot of time), they just weren’t as far along as we would have liked, though for different reasons.

Our 482 project was behind because it was a really complicated assignment. Not complicated in the sense that once you figured it out, you were golden. Oh no, I mean complicated in the sense of once you thought you’d found a problem, the autograder would laugh and give you the same score you had before. We literally had a 72 for about a week. At some point, we got it up to a 74. Hours upon hours later, it was still stuck at a 74. Even after we used our free late days, it was stuck at a 74. Guess what? We got a 74. Since we used our late days, that meant I wasn’t done worrying about it until 12/16.

Our 373 project was behind for a number of reasons, but suffice it to say that it was nowhere near ready on 12/13. So we took the offered extension of a week extra, and took a 5% grade hit. Not a bad deal if you ask me. Anyway, after pulling one 30 hour session in the lab, getting 14 hours of sleep and coming back to work on it some more, we finally got it working.

So I was finally done with my classes on 12/20, a full week after I had intended to be done. See, the original plan was to be done on 12/13, go out of town for an interview on 12/14, and spend the next week playing video games, sleeping, and getting some hours in at work. Needless to say, it didn’t quite work out that way.

Let me tell you, the evening of 12/20 felt gooooooooood.

And once again, it’s been over a month since I posted. I’m just not very good at this blogging thing. It’s not that I don’t want to, don’t like to, or even don’t have time to. It’s more that when I don’t have time, I want to, and when I do have time, I don’t feel like it. Anyway, I figured it was time to get back to it. It’s been a crazy few weeks, and there’s a lot to tell, but at least I don’t have to go as far back as I thought (I thought my last post was early November…)

[Doh. I just looked at my last couple posts and realized, I haven't actually updated on what's been going on since late October. /sigh]

Ok, since there are 2 1/2 months of updates to cover, November is going to get a very quick overview:

- Fall retreat (with Campus Crusade for Christ, here-after referred to as cru) was a ton of fun. Really good speaker, good chance to meet and hang out with UM cru people that I didn’t know, and a nice chance to relax from the homework. What was not so cool was the car accident on the way home (I wasn’t driving), but the amazing thing was that no one was hurt, and we didn’t get hit by any other cars (or semi’s), despite bouncing off of a guardrail, crossing both lanes, and bouncing off the other guardrail on I94 on a Sunday afternoon. God was definitely taking care of us, which is pretty amazing.

- Thanksgiving was good, the family all came to my place (in da ‘burg, not here in a2) for the day. Dinner was delicious, of course, and I ate too much (of course). Where I really got into trouble was the selection of pies for dessert. I mean, how could I turn down a slice of pumpkin pie with ice cream and whipped cream, followed by a slice of cherry pie and a glass of cold milk?

That’s pretty much all I remember of November. School continued as usual, I had a couple more first interviews (I think. I don’t remember exactly when everything happened), and my project groups started (or continued) working on our final projects. In the cases of my EECS classes, it would later turn out that we didn’t start quite early enough.

[Why does my laptop think it's 7AM? Gah that confused me for a second...]

Ok, enough for now. Maybe I’ll write another post tomorrow and give an update on the end of the semester and Christmas break. For now, it’s time to sleep.

[So I went to spell check this post before I published it. The ironic thing? Blogger doesn't think that "blogging" is a word. Their first suggestion is "flogging". Thanks, but I'll pass on the flogging.]

[They apparently don't think "Blogger" is a word either. This just keeps getting stranger.]