Back at UIUC

Posted by Steve Hanna on August 29th, 2005 filed in Random

So, it has been a while since my last update but surely you can understand that I have been extremely busy. Getting back to school and moving into a new apartment is hard work! My new apartment is alright, although leased by satan, Chad, Jess, Rob and I have managed to make it a fairly decent place. While my room remains unpainted, our living room has a nice blue/beige paint job as well as a fairly nice entertainment center. Overall, the apartment is looking really decent. On the other hand, my credit card bill is not looking nearly as chic, in fact I am in quite a lot of debt after the laptop, kung fu DVD, and receiver buying extravaganza. So money will be a bit tight for a while.

Let’s see, school related things… I am taking six courses right now, ECE329 (Electromagnetics), ECE385(Digital Systems Lab), ECE497(Senior Thesis), BIOE120(Intro to Bioengineering), CS591(Security Reading Group), FR105(Accelerated French Review). My semester est tres difficile but it looks like it could be a lot of fun. My electromagnetics class has homework due every class period, which has its benefits. Namely the benefits are that I cannot afford to slack off at all and it will keep me on track, the downside seems to be that I HAVE HOMEWORK DUE EVERY CLASS PERIOD. Sigh, I guess I will get over it. As a final note, I really need to get started on my thesis…

ACM seems to be functioning like a well oiled machine this year. With Parisa, Christy, Ari, and Anthony running things it should be an interesting (read: awesome) year. They seem to be on the ball about most everything and exec meetings are a lot more fun when I can constantly do a ::rolleyes:: towards Clausen*. Having Chris back doing almost exclusively sigmil things is a definite benefit as well.

Other news, my brother Ryan and my good friend Brandon came to visit this weekend. We had an excellent time parading around campus and enjoying the ambrosia of inebriation. Ryan and Brandon decided that they would have as many drinks as possible as fast as possible. This worked out pretty well, except for poor Ryan who decided that he would have around 10 beers and two shots of tequila. He seemed fine until around 3am (note the party went until damn near 6:30), where he arose from the place he was slumbering, fell onto my bed, then ran to the bathroom to worship the porcelain god. Barring that one incident, we had a great time. Not only did we party a lot, but I got to show him around campus a bit and they even got to meet Erika when we all went out to dinner!

To backtrack a little, it would seem that our new apartment has turned into a party mecca. We have had several parties already and I believe we are doing another full round of partying this weekend (I use we because it is my apartment, not because I will necessarily be around). Don’t get me wrong, I like to party, but there needs to be some sort of moderation. I am too much of an introvert to party all of the time yet not quite enough as to prevent my extroverted side from cutting loose every once in a while. I just need to try to keep a healthy balance between work and leisure.

Speaking of “working hard”, I decided this will be a 4.0 semester. I don’t know if it will definitely happen, but I figure I need to make this year really count in order to get into grad school. Wish me luck!

à bientôt!

*deep down I really like this guy, I promise!