Alright, this is getting ridiculous

I mean seriously, there is no good reason as to why I couldn't have posted a blog post before this. So here I am getting frustrated with myself, and I decided "It's about time I write a blog post." So here I am!

So, what has been overwhelming my life so much that I can't write a blog post? I think this very descriptive picture should break it down for you:

So let's just go over these one by one shall we?

Sleeping:

Pretty much just a whole lot of that. Note how I still have my bookbag on, that's pretty much how my mid-day naps go.

Studying:
Imagine that last picture, but now with a math textbook underneath my face.

Going to class:
Ok, I actually have a lot of really cool things to talk about here. So first off: my Engr 120 english class is probably my favorite class right now, no joke. Sure I still kinda suck at writing, but I'm still having a real good time.
So we had this project where we needed to make a project about some form of communication or design, and we got to sign up for the different options. I was first to get the list (coz I sit near the front of course) and I see that the first presentation is called "The Point of PowerPoint." A presentation about PowerPoint?! It was essentially my dream come true (but with less starships). So I sign up for that, and the person who signs up as my partner also happens to love PowerPoint as much as I do. This was pretty much the best pair you could possibly imagine. This turned into one of the most beautiful PowerPoints that has ever left my computer.

The coupling of strong imagery with powerful dialogue led to a fantastic presentation. Unfortunately, since we went first, we essentially stood up and gave a beautiful show that told people the best and worst ways to do a PowerPoint just before other people had to go up and give their bullet list PowerPoints... I have no regrets.

Soon after this presentation the Bridge Project appeared, which was the giant grade-dooming final project. Essentially the point of the project is: the Johnson Street Bridge is going to be replaced... be engineers and figure out the best thing to replace it with. This incorporated making a very large document doing analysis on several different designs and come to a conclusion (most people came to the same conclusion that the government did, but whatever). So Stephen (the guy from the last project) and I teamed up with a third person: Matthew. Together we worked hard and made what we would call a darn good paper. So we were sitting in class after the paper had already been turned in and I was wandering around the teacher's file sharing site when I noticed some labeled "A Sample Report #2" (this was report #2, coz it was the second really big report we had). So I was like "Hey Stephen he put up a sample report!" To which he responded "Oh cool, we can figure out what we did wrong." I clicked on the link to be surprised when our report popped up. We stared at it for a few seconds completely silent... then I closed it and clicked the link again to the same result. "Welp... that's definitely our report there..." In confusion Stephen said "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Matt walked in an expressed equal confusion and concern as to the presence of our report on the site, mentioning though that if he was putting it up as a bad example he probably would have taken our names off of it. The Prof walked in at that moment and started class, directing everyone to our paper and displaying it as "The best he received." Needless to say there was a bright and shiny A on that paper when it returned to us. (Paper available on request, posting it here would make this blog post much too long (not that it isn't already)).

So in the engr 120 lab section we were placed with the role of actually constructing bridges and making them fully autonomous. This was with lab teams so I was working with a team that admittedly I didn't have quite as wonderful of a time with. Though in the end the work resulted in what I consider quite the nice bridge:

So the bridge detects when boats are coming, but wont lift until there are no cars on top of the bridge. It's got traffic signals for both the boats and the cars, and of course detects when the boats have cleared the bridge so that it knows to go back down. It decided it felt like having some problems when the Prof came over to give us marks, but we still got a good grade on it.

So now we have the bridge done, so what happens next? Well obviously we have to write a proposal to the City of Victoria! Included in this proposal was a presentation progress report (which I actually just presented today). Luckily this is back with Stephen and Matt, so once again we were set to be the head of the pack. Feeling like an amazing team, we decided to go as far as to give ourselves a company logo, and thus resulted in another beautiful PowerPoint:

Our professor said this about our presentation:

First: I liked the ties.  I’m not sure what the dress protocols are in Engineering (though, frankly, I haven’t exactly been blown away by the dress sense of my colleagues in the Engineering program), but the ties worked for me. As for the presentation, it was very nicely done: clear and concise; strong visuals (I particularly liked the highlighting fx that helped to make your pictures work as well as a figure); and coherent in all its parts.  Each of you has, as one might expect, a rather different style, or public manner, and that can sometimes lead to a clash in a team presentation, but I sensed no such clash here. It helped that all of you seemed equally comfortable before the class.  I also liked the way all of you used the screen as it should be used: as an aid intended too support your conversation with the audience.  I didn’t get a sense, at any point, as one sometimes does, that a speaker had been sucked into the screen and effectively lost to his or her listeners. 

I can send any or all of these files to you on request. Just realize that the PowerPoints will suffer from a lack of dialogue. We tend to shoot for more of the "Assertion-Evidence" style of presentations. 

Alrighty, enough about that school silliness (who goes to University for schooling anyway (just kidding Mom)).

Ignoring the extremely long state of my hair:

Or at least I was, I got it cut when I went home. I have a beard though!

Having D&D adventures with friends:
"You enter a quiet lobby. There are four couches directly in front of you which sit around a large mat that says 'Welcome.' There are three large chairs sitting comfortably by the fireplace. There are four potted plants around the room which give the room a nice outdoorsy touch. You see the staircase which leads to the next floor."
Now there is one big rule in Dungeons and Dragons which my friends hadn't yet learned: Never split the party. So everyone wanders to a different object in the room to examine it carefully. Just as the Barbarian walks into the middle of the welcome mat everything erupts into battle.
"The welcome mat pulls up and wraps itself around you. The couches then proceed to slam against you. Everyone by the potted plants suddenly notice that the plant is wrapping itself around your heads. You two by the fire place get attacked by the chairs."
"Wow, anything else?"
"Um... oh yes, with a loud grunt the staircase lifts itself and tramples over you."
"Fantastic"
This was actually my first time acting as the DM (dungeon master) for a group of people, so I was working hard to make a difficult and yet still fun challenge. I am proud to say that I was successful in my attempt. Nobody died (though we were close when the Paladin accidentally made everyone fall about 50 feet) and we all had a lot of fun.

Now for other social things:
I promise I'll keep this section short, I just have a couple silly and fun things to say. So my friend Mairin was talking to someone and describing me and mentioned that I like Star Trek. The other person's immediate reaction was to ask "Oh, you mean the guy who wears the Star Trek Pin all the time?" According to Mairin I have officially become "The Star Trek Guy." I claim victory

Speaking of people with "TheStarTrek" in their names, do you recall "TheStarTrekGirl" from the blog post about the Uvic lipdub? Apparently some of my friends are looking to move into the house she is moving out of.
So they come back from looking at this house and they are telling me how cool it is and they say "Oh, and they had this whole closet filled with Star Trek models!" So of course I was like "Oh man, these people are so cool!" Then they said "Oh, and one girl had a Star Trek tattoo on her back!" So of course I was like "Oh man, this person is so... wait a second... like on her shoulder area? * googles video * Did she look like this?" So it turns out that by happening to notice her dressed in a liutenant's uniform in the Uvic Lipdub, getting linked to her youtube channel through the recommended videos bar, and my friends happening to pick her house to move in to, fate seems to have decided that through no effort of my own I should be the biggest creeper imaginable. On that note, goodnight everybody and have a magical day!