pre-halloween @ sb

We had noise ordinance enforced since Monday. Which just means, don't be too loud.

Today at noon we entered lockdown. It's just more annoying than anything. All doors are locked except 1-2 per building (front entrance). RAs are camping out everyone near the locked entrances. No guests.

So we just end up having people open the locked entrances for us from the inside. We're so lazy that we don't want to walk around to the other side of the building to enter, so we just wait by the side entrance and wait for someone to leave, which is then followed by a mad rush to the door.

top 10 things i have learned in college
1. bring sweatpants. these are a must. theres nothing better than running around on campus in your PJs, because when you get back, all you do is flop on your bed and die.
2. bring an ipod/mp3 player or a nice phone that plays music. theres nothing worse than running around on campus with no music. :(
3. expect strange things to happen. for example, apparently one of my suitemates watches porn.
its kinda funny but weird at the same time cause someone walked in on her.
4. expect to feel naked when you shower. the fact that anyone can open the shower curtain and be like BOOOO makes you feel extremely vulnerable.
5. schools have wireless internet for a reason. use it wisely. when you're in class & you're bored, nothings better than signing onto facebook.
6. no matter how you say you're not gonna drink, dont kid yourself. its college.
7. bring food to class.theres nothing worse than a professor talking about food while your stomach is growling like crazy. its not fun.
8. expect to pull allnighters..not from studying. but from partying. study hard, but party harder.
9. for those of us who don't know how to peel fruit. good luck. it sucks.
10. being bored is the worst of all evils for college kids. if you're bored...and its a friday or saturday night..you're not partying hard enough.


speaking of.
anyone going to the usc party on friday?
i'll be there :D

My life revolves around Architecture.

1. Everything I talk about relates to Architecture. (i.e reports, models, buildings, design)
2. I'm falling for a TA who is 5th year Architecture undergraduate.
3. Every time I'm walking across campus, I look up at all the buildings.
4. I'm always at the studio until 4 AM.
5. When I'm not at the studio, I'm in my room working on precedent papers & drawings for drawing studio.
6. I think I have no life because everyone else in my suite is always out so I go to Architecture to keep me busy.
7. I'm planning to apply for internships at Architecture firms during the summer...already..even though I'm only a 1st year student.
8. I need to meet more upperclassmen. And yes, that includes the really cute TA. (:

Okay. Talk to ya`ll later. Back to working on my Architecture papers. Sigh.

The Umbrella Corporation!

GASP! Could this be the secret entrance to the Umbrella Corporation!?

For those who have no clue what i'm talking about, that's the company in Resident Evil that started the T-virus and made everyone into crazy zombies! This was actually located in Merced College. My suitemate, Matt, and I were walking to the remote parking lot to his car and I stopped after walking over this and was like...WOAH! IT LOOKS LIKE THE RESIDENT EVIL COMPANY LOGO! So I took a pic XD.

-Jono

i just realized one thing i can't do.
i dont know if its the knife or if its the pear being retarded.
but i'm not peeling this stupid fruit very well.
i'm like hacking off pieces and eating it.
... i fail.

Doing the Impossible!

I've already wrote up my whole post on my blog: http://jonobloggie.blogspot.com/2008/10/achieving-impossible.html

so for more details, there ya go~

-Jono

what we do when we're not partying in sb

Wow. 3 entries from me in a row. I guess that's because I now relocate all my college info stuff onto here. :P

Anyways, here's a list (so far) of what we've done when we're not out partying:

1. We shoot pool.
2. We chill in the hallway and lounge.
3. We longboard/freeline in the hallway
4. We do cartwheels in the hallway
5. We side our cellphones across the floor of the hallway to see whose phone goes farther.
6. We play tag on break room couches only, jumping from chair to chair, without touching ground.
7. We jump on/over/off break room couches, trying to do flips and cartwheels.
8. We prop up, tilt, flip over those same couches and jump into them knocking them over.
9. We take stupid pictures with our stonehedge made of couches.
10. We dance on the pool tables.
11. We have food fights in the lounge.

:P

oh. and a picture of #9:

windy

add on point, different topic so different point.

Today was super windy in ucsb. My room faces the ocean (yes you can see it). Normally the ocean breeze gets blocked by the tall building right next to us, so if we want to cool off our room, we would just prop our door open and let the wind in the hallway (hallway windows are always open) blow into our room, and out our window. It's fun to watch all the dust in our room flr out the window.

Today the wind came at a window so that it came at our window directly. So when we opened the door, all the light objects(paper on desks) would start flying out cause it was a pretty strong wind. What sucks even more ( but wasn't too bad cause we're 5th floor) was that all the sand from the volleyball court right in front of our room blew up the against our wall (sucks for people in floors 1-3. cause their windows open all the way, and if it was open, all the sand would've flown in). We just had small amounts of very fine sand everywhere (only noticeable on the black top of my laptop).

I also realized, I DIDN'T BRING MY KITE YET CAUSE IT'S STILL IN MY CAR :(. Next time though... next time.. (which hopefully is sometime after next week when I have both my car and my kite).

lectures, discussions and labs

In terms of type of classes, I have 4 lectures, 3 discussions, and a lab. Computer science is technically a lecture, but it feels like a discussion, cause the professor does stop when we need clarification, and does answer questions mid-lecture. Writing is also technically a lecture also, but I consider it to be a discussion, small class size, and there's actual work. Now..

My lectures are environmental studies, math, computer science, and gaming studies. The environmental studies professor (who I think Sandra would love, since he's the guy leading all environmental studies research everywhere) is wonderful. He gives great lectures. His lectures bring up good points. At the end of his lectures, most of the people in the hall stand up and clap (except that one time he talked about how to use library resources, and what our paper needed to be one). Math lectures are deep, and involve lots of concentration to keep up, and its usually about how differential equations/formulas/theories work (so far). Since math is a pretty dry topic, its pretty boring. Thankfully he isn't monotone. Though yesterday, we had a sub, so I walked out of that lecture cause I couldn't understand anything he said (accent) and he was horrible at lecturing. Gaming studies usually starts by having the professor bring about a point for us to deeply analyze, and ends up with everyone debating back and forth. Fun class, fun homework. Computer science is really like a normal high school lecture (with better participants). Pretty small class size. I seriously think I should've taken a higher level computer science class. I understand everything professor explains.

Now comes my classroom habits. I usually stay pretty attentive during environmental studies. I fall asleep halfway through math. I sleep before lecture even starts until the end of lecture for computer science (I still have a perfect assignment score though, so yes, I do understand the course very well). So I sleep in half my lectures, that's not too bad.

Discussions are.. worse. Environmental science discussion talks about things completely different from lectures. They are actual discussions. There is work. It is required. So nothing I can do about that. Math discussions I walk in, check in, walk out when the TA turns around, that is, if I actually attend. Its optional, but highly recommended, I tend to stick with optional. Writing usually ends with a writing assignment. Finish the assignment quickly, leave. We can walk in and out during writing assignments, so it's ok. Hard to do a check in, walk out here, there's actually work due. Labs are pretty much like discussions. After the TA takes roll, I try to leave. Usually isn't too hard. He's supposed to check our lab results, but he doesn't.

Verdict? I still sleep when I'm bored in lectures. But I've upgraded from sleeping in discussions/labs to sneaking out/ditching. I love college. :D

superbunnies exist.

yes. they do. (: taken at 6th college at sd. why they're there, i dont know, but they exist!

my rant on stupid people too excited to learn

There are certain fields of study I feel "hard work" is simply not good enough. Fields such as, medicine, law, mathematics, and most importantly, engineering. So, I'm an engineer (as defined by the school anyways). I go to a tier-1 researched based university (don't we all?). You'd think that in one of the best universities in the nation, in the college of engineering, there would be a bunch of smart people.

So during the lecture, you would have people interrupting with "can you repeat that" or "what?" or "can you explain that again different?"

Seriously. What the professor said wasn't that complicated at all, in fact, its pretty straight forward and perfectly logical, and you have swarms of people (who, I might add, have the standard engineering student stereotype, glasses, poor hygiene, bad body shape, acne, high squeaky voice, no apparent social skill, and have really really nice computers). You'd think with all that time they spend studying, they would develop some forms of thinking.

I believe universities are places where you learn and think on your own, not relay information exactly as the professor explained it, getting confused at the smallest variation. Memorization is the lowest form of thinking. It's simply memory recall. Sure, having good memory can be a talent. But good memory is perfectly possible to obtain. Higher level thinking, not so much.

(pause rant cause I need to go to class)

So what happens when the normal teaching method changes from spoon feeding to information just enough so you can fill in the gaps? People fail and we get a wonderful 11:1 faculty to student ratio. These people need to stop stalling the lecture, and learn what office hours are for -.-

Just another interesting observation. This is when you notice the difference in people, from those who truly deserved to get in, and people who had "easy" teachers from "easy" schools who went through those wonderful SAT summer training camps many times. These are the same people who always had tutoring, never failed to get perfects on homework but only did so-so on tests.