One more day

One!

Day!

Mooooore!

[End Les Miserables reference.]

Indeed! I'm now three-quarters of the way done with finals, with only a chemistry final tomorrow morning. Pretty excited. Though, really, finals have been almost laughably easy so far. I had a sociology and biology exam last night, both of which I finished in just over half the time allotted, without having studied for them. I had a presentation in my intro to the Bible class today, for which my group did my one of my favorite books/movies of all time, Watchmen, and that went rather smoothly. The only final I'm actually taking somewhat seriously is tomorrow's chemistry exam, and I've barely studied even for that. I suppose they were right about IB really preparing you for college.

I've also been packing and getting ready to move out of the dorms. As of now, about two-thirds of my stuff is already moved, and the rest is mostly packed up and ready to go tomorrow. The number of containers required to hold all my stuff has gone up a bit since the beginning of the years, which is somewhat heartening (though it'll also be a hassle to move). It's interesting to look at my part of the room and actually ponder how it looks a bit blank without the miscellaneous comics and things I'd tacked up on the walls, as well as the now-empty bookshelf. Guess you do get attached to your space.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm planning to finish packing up before my exam, practice some piano if I have time, then take the exam and get ready to go. Huzzah.

oh no finals oh no

Nah, just kidding.

Finals week is next week and... quite honestly? I couldn't care less. I was told a few times before starting college that it'd be a huge transition, I wouldn't be able to continue my usual study habits (or, more appropriate, lack thereof), I'd meet people much much smarter than me, etcetera etcetera. Let's see.

There wasn't really any transition to speak of. Just school again, in a different setting, with a slightly different routine. The one thing I will note is that interaction with other people has changed quite a bit for me. I've never been very good at meeting people to begin with (though I'm okay at getting along with them once I'm past that initial bit), so it's incredibly difficult to meet new people when I don't see many people more than once a day, and there are so damned many people besides. A friend from high school, who I had lunch with over fall break, pointed out that IB did an excellent job of forcing us to meet people: It basically threw all of us into a room, said "These are the people you will be having class with for the next four years. Meet them.", and walked away. That's not to say that I don't like the people from high school - I believe that having a few good friends that you can really trust is preferable to having a huge network of people whom you are only somewhat acquainted with. Seems like a lot of people are really fixated on the latter. Insecurity? I don't know.

Study habits? Haven't changed a bit. When I've got a test coming up, I'll look over the things that I need to work on briefly, then not worry about it. And I'm doing fine. Actually, in MCDB (Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology), I did the best on the test that I didn't even bother studying for, because I'd gotten an average of a 90ish on the first two and they drop the lowest of the three. I also did quite well on a chemistry test which I walked into sick, with no preparation, and confused about what day it was due to a nap just previously. The results of that test were rather amusing.

Finally... smart people. While I know some very smart people from high school that are at college with me, I haven't met anyone new that blows me out of the water, so to speak. There are other smart students, to be sure, but no one on the scale that I was told to expect. Certainly people talk about having "genius roommates" and suchlike, but judging from the types of people that I hear having these conversations, well, I'm not convinced. (Of note: I really do try not to come across as arrogant. Sometimes it's difficult.)

Onwards towards finals week, then. And all that.

Minecraftventures, Part Something (and also some other stuff)

I've been on fall break this week. 'S been nice, having time to relax and do whatever instead of the usual routine of school. I also got the opportunity to see a couple friends from high school, which was fantastic. Had lunch with one on Friday, and today another came over for some fun times on Halo: Reach. I'll admit that I'm not very excited to be going back to school tomorrow, but it'll only be two weeks and then finals before winter break. I think I can handle it.

Anyways, I've also been playing quite a bit of Minecraft this week. The multiplayer mode was recently updated so monsters spawn at night, but we've currently got them disabled since they're a tad bit buggy. My major project this week was a tower based off of the Seattle Space Needle, and I just finished it earlier today. Here's some screenshots of it (Click for pretty large versions!):

A nighttime shot. The clouds actually pass right below the top area.

And a requisite sunrise shot.

According to Minecraft's dimensions of each block being 1 cubic meter, the tower stands just over 50 meters tall (the actual Space Needle is 184m tall) and is just 3 blocks below the vertical limit for building (hence why I wasn't able to add the top antenna-needle bit). A few modifications were also made to make it more suitable for building: the number of "legs" was increased from three to four (since I have no idea how to make an equilateral triangle in Minecraft) and the color scheme was modified quite a bit, since the only white blocks that I'm aware of are sand and cloth - sand being difficult to use since it won't stay up in the air if it isn't supported underneath by another block, and cloth being frustratingly difficult to obtain. Alternatively I could have used natural stone blocks, but you have to stick cobblestone in a furnace for a while to get those and it would have been rather time-consuming.

Overall I'm quite satisfied with the final result, though a bit disappointed that I wasn't able to properly build the top antenna and that the color scheme is a tad bit... patchy? I've already begun to plan my next construction project, which will either be a castle of some type or some sort of circular, gothic-esque tower.