Woke up at 6 AM again as usual - the traffic was not nearly as bad this time. Or maybe it is just that I am getting used to it. Today in Digital Design Lab the students had to design a given state table in hardware and simulate it through Altera.

After school, Nicky and I headed off to Publix to do some shopping. I was running dangerously low on food and drinks.

I was looking at some introductory programming languages designed for elementary and middle school kids, and discovered StarLogo 2.0, which was released yesterday by MIT (of course). It is a specialized version of the Logo programming language that teaches through the use of graphics and graphical interfaces. At the same time, it is also a modeling environment for decentralized systems (for those of us who are now college kids), and allows us to experiment with various artificial intelligence models.

Tomorrow is Friday! I need a break.

Had two tests today, one in Statistics, and the other in Computer Architectures. In Circuit Analysis we covered Laplace transformations. Also taught recitation today - the topics covered included inheritance, dynamic binding, and polymorphism. I turned in my time sheet for the past two weeks of work.

After recitation, the TA group and I went and ate dinner at Moe’s, a Southwest grill restaurant. I ordered steak fajitas and a Coke. I got back around 9:30 at night - that didn’t leave time for very much work. So I’m updating this entry and heading straight to bed for the 8 AM Thursday that follows.

Worked some more on my ECE3055 assignment and finally got it checked off this afternoon. I also had an Economics test which was multiple guess.

I paid my Cingular phone bill today, and graded CS1322 tests (it took up much more time than I would have liked). My friend Ryan also started his own journal. Unfortunately, I made very little progress on my ECE3055 assignment, due on Wednesday. It looks like this week will be packed with lots of cramming and last minute work.

We went back to the mall today to play DDR again. Stacie had become throughly addicted by this point. I had an even larger audience than yesterday, and Tracy and Audrey also decided to play this time. After dancing, we stopped at the food court in the mall to grab a bite to eat. Eventually, we returned to Audrey’s house, packed, said our goodbyes, and left around 3 PM.

The trip back was uneventful, though I ended up taking an alternate, more scenic route through I-26 along the mountains. It rained quite hard while driving down until entering Georgia, when the skies began to clear. I made it back around 7 PM, goofed off for a few hours, and then headed to bed.

Stacie woke up cold and shivering in the morning. Apparently we forgot to give her a blanket at night. Oops.

We ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant called El Chapala with the gang (Stacie drove), chatted for a little while, and then headed back to the house to hang out some more. Audrey had to get ready to go to work.

A little while after lunch, I met Audrey’s roommate, Kate. Since Audrey had already left for work, Kate, Tracy, Stacie, and I took a trip over to the mall (Kate drove). There, I would introduce them to wonder that is Dance Dance Revolution!

We arrived at the mall fairly quickly, and headed directly to the arcade, where they had a DDR 3rd Mix arcade machine. No one was playing - and we had the machine all to ourselves. After a lot of coersion, I finally convinced Stacie to join me.

Now, I certainly do not consider myself to be that great of a DDR player, especially when compared to some Georgia Tech students here, but it appears that I gathered quite an audience that evening. Before long, there were 10-20 people watching me play, along with various spectators looking in through the glass windows of the arcade! It was quite an enjoyable experience, and I had a lot of fun playing and (of course) showing off.

After DDR, we went looking for food, and ended up at a Chinese restaurant called Dragon. The service was horrible (we waited for ever), and we couldn’t figure out whether our waitor was male or female (indeed very scary). On a plus note, however, my House Special fried rice was extremely delicious.

On our adventures, we also went to Blockbuster to rent a movie for the night. Tracy picked out a movie called Dancing at the Blue Iguana. Since then, we’ve decided to not allow Tracy to rent movies. Ever again.

We got back to Audrey’s house at about 10, and began the movie. Kate had other plans and dissapeared for the rest of the night. So Stacie, Tracy, and I watched the movie, and Audrey arrived halfway through and finished it with us. We then started a movie called 20 Dates, but most of us passed out in our respective sleeping places before the movie was done.

Whew, what a long and exciting day!

I took my second Computer Architecture quiz today. When I got home, I quickly packed and got ready to leave to visit my friends Tracy, Stacie, and Audrey. Destination: Ashville, North Carolina.

It was supposed to be a three and a half hour trip, but I (as usual) managed to arrive about two hours behind schedule. The mistakes were numerous. First, it definitely wasn’t a good idea to leave exactly at 6 PM. The traffic was standstill. I lost nearly an hour and a half trying to get to I-85. Second, it rained very heavily all throughout the drive. Cars were moving at about 20-30 mph and visibility was near zero. Finally, I got lost somewhere in South Carolina, due to some rather awkward Map Blast directions which led me going in the wrong direction for a while. Luckily, I had my cell phone, and gave Stacie a call - she got me on the right track, and I finally arrived at Audrey’s house at about 11 at night.

Audrey got off work just around then (she works at IHOP). We spent a little while catching up on old times, and eventually went over to Waffle House after deciding we were hungry. As a result of having a large, spacious, comfortable, 4-door Pontiac Bonneville, I had to drive. I ordered my usual triple hash browns - scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, and topped.

All of us were pretty exhausted when we got back. I slept with three women that night. Okay, not really, but they were in the same house.

My alarm clock was set for PM instead of AM, and I ended up waking up at 8 for my 8 AM class. I made it to Georgia Tech by 8:45 AM though, so that wasn’t too bad. I got paid today by Georgia Tech as well. Other than that, it was a pretty typical day.

Some days I get lucky. Today was one of those days. My Statistics and Applications test was supposed to be today; I completely did not study for it. Our teacher moved it to Wednesday. I also received an RMA number for my RAM. Now I just need to find packaging to ship it.