Gadgets and Grades

Well, I'm home! I've been home for a while, actually, but I didn't think that I'd be so busy doing hardly anything but relaxing. As I mentioned in my last post, I was leaving for Girard immediately after my PHYS final on 15 December. And that was just what happened; after the final, I trudged back to the lobby of my dorm to find my father sitting there waiting for me. My mother was using the bathroom. Oh, well.

But I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself. Something tells me this could be a long post. I started the day on Friday 15 December by waking up earlier than I usually did. The finals earlier in the week had worn me out, so I found myself unable to pack Thursday night. Trying hard not to disturb my roommate, who was on the third of three consecutive days without an exam (although he had two on Saturday), I started packing around 07:30.

After finishing most of my packing, I went to the Book Center to see if I could find some nice Christmas gifts for my parents. I did. And that's all I can say because they read this blog from time to time, and as such, divulging any further information would defeat the purpose of the surprise. I may write about it after the holiday.

I went to the Student Union and had a fairly early lunch before my exam started at 12:00. The exam was uneventful. I mean, it was an exam. And this puts me right about where I started. Great.

So we went up to my room, gathered my belongings, and left my roommate in peace. We were in the room for about 20 minutes or so, and I think he said a grand total of three words to us in that time. My mother later mentioned that that bothered her. Why? He just doesn't talk to strangers, that's all!

I think it was my father who mentioned the sudden increase in furniture in the hallways. Or maybe it was my mother. Or maybe I'm making this all up. In any case, I pointed out the "Lounge Furniture Amnesty" sign on the way out. Apparently at the beginning of the semester, one of the other floors came and stole chairs and tables and whatnot from all the other floors for use in their rooms. Needless to say, the other floors were not happy... to say nothing of the Resident Director, who posted the sign, which said, "Residents... will have an opportunity to place any hall or lounge furniture back where it belongs before Thursday, December 14th in order to avoid documentation and fine(s)."

Well, the furniture came back, but not a day sooner than it had to. I really think we ended up with more than we started with... but we only had it for about three days way back in August, so who can remember how much we were supposed to have?

Travelling up the Interstate, I was given my cell phone. And I got to keep it this time. On Sunday 10 December, when my parents came to see the Heinz Chapel Choir concert, Dad brought my cell phone down and let me play with it, but he wouldn't let me keep it during finals week. That was probably a fairly good idea. But now I have it, along with the stupid 30-second advertisement on startup and the free nights that start at 21:01 rather than 21:00.

But that doesn't matter. When we got home, my parents left almost immediately for a dinner party and dropped my brother and I off with our grandparents, who later took us to our great-grandmother's house to have dinner and watch General McLane play in the state football championship, which they ultimately won.

Yada, yada, yada. Next day.

My computer came. Need I say more? We fired it up and started installing programs to make it functional. And now you are reading my first blog post from this machine.

So that was exciting news, but certainly not interesting. Skip a few days, my brother goes back to school for the week. He becomes miserable, and there's little I can do about it but reassure him that it all ends on Friday. On Tuesday, my mother called from work for "tech support," wondering how to move a folder out from a folder on her computer. It was difficult to help her over the phone, so she said that I could help her when I came today.

Wait, what? Why would I be going to your workplace? Apparently, she signed my father and I up to help out with some Christmas caroling... without really telling us. It's a good thing I still hadn't made my plans to meet up with a friend. The downside, though, is that I can't meet with him until next week now, which is when all my cousins will be up for the holiday, which is when I'll be least likely to want to leave.

Speaking of which, Laurel and I made a blog for the Cousin Club. We figured it's about time. I must add a disclaimer, however, or she will never forgive me: It was her idea. I only take credit for actually making the thing work the way we wanted it to. And there's still more work to be done.

A couple more days pass, and with Pitt's new grade-posting policy, I was treated each night with another grade or two from my classes. Here's the breakdown:

CHEM 0760	Honors General Chemistry for Engineers 1	3 cr.	B+
ENGR 0081	Freshman Engineering Seminar 1	0 cr.	S
ENGR 0711	Honors Engineering Analysis & Computing	3 cr.	A+
MATH 0235	Honors 1-Variable Calculus	4 cr.	B+
MUSIC 0630	Marching Band	1 cr.	A
PHYS 0174	Basic Physics for Science & Engineering 1	4 cr.	A-
PSY 0010	Introduction to Psychology	3 cr.	A

Yes, that's an "S" for "satisfactory" in my zero-credit seminar. Apparently I showed up enough. Anyway, when you do the math, that adds up to a QPA of 3.653 on 18 credits, which would put me on the Term List. And that's pretty darn awesome.

As far as the commentary goes on the above, I was really worried about CHEM. And I mean really worried; I thought a "B-" was my best hope. I was not anticipating a "plus" in either ENGR 0711 or MATH 0235, but both were certainly welcome. Apart from that, everything was as I expected. So in short, my finals must have gone better than I thought!

When I found out the good news, I told my out-of-town grandparents immediately, as they were, for the night, in town and staying at our house. Everyone was extremely happy. Except my brother. He had to go to school the next day.

Caroling at the hospital today (as mentioned above) was fun. And apparently I "mingled well" with the adults, blending right in. So that was awesome. Afterwards, I nearly finished my Christmas shopping, except for one gift, which I'll probably buy in the morning.

Random tangent: In women's basketball, (22) Pitt lost to (4) Duke today, 72-51. It's their first loss of the season, bringing them to a 12-1 record. But that's not the upsetting part. On the men's side of things, (7) Pitt lost to (15) Oklahoma State in double overtime, 95-89. I was watching on the ESPN.com Scoreboard as I was typing the end of this post, and it was very upsetting. They've now lost two in a row, and are 10-2 for the season. We'll see what happens now.