Golfing, Who & Celebration Roast!

Well now that the week is halfway over, I figured it would be a good time to fill you in on last weekend's shenanigans. It all started early on Friday afternoon with my company's unofficial golf outing. It was a TON of fun and as it always happens when I play golf, left me wondering why I don't play more. I mean, look how great I look:

The 'outing' had tons of fun rules for holes, such as: taking shots of 99 Bananas or Wild Turkey, teeing off with a kids driver, putting with a hockey stick, and my favorite - the Happy Gilmore drive. Steven was also able to take the afternoon off, so he got to join in the fun too, which was awesome! And in true nerd fashion, I ironed a Ravenclaw house patch to my shirt before hitting the links. (Thanks Cappy & Eleanor!) 

Saturday was a pretty quiet day, I had to catch up on some work after taking the afternoon off on Friday. BUT it did mark the start of the new series of Doctor Who. Oh. Em. Gee, was it ever ah-mazing! For those of you that don't know I am a MAJOR Doctor Who fangirl, and this episode did not disappoint. I mean WOW did it start of with a bang. The Doctor dies, we see the scariest monsters yet AND we're left with a cliffhanger already?! This series is going to be awesome-sauce.

..But more on that later. My love for Who deserves a full post.

Then Sunday was Easter and we kept it pretty low key. I prepped an Easter feast for Steven & our good friend Kevin of roasted potatoes, asparagus and vegetarian 'Celebration Roast'. It was quite tasty if I do say so myself! Maybe next year we should have more friends over & put on an Easter egg hunt too!

Now I've just got 19 days until the end of my first graduate semester. Time to put my nose to the grindstone and finish strong! Then I'll have more time to dedicate here, which I know excites you dearest blogland.

Confidence, I haz it!

Phew...as I am sitting on my couch enjoying a very well deserved [I think] glass of wine, I can't help but think - where did this last week go?! Was there some kind of tear in the space-time continuum that made me skip a few days?

I mean, I'm a busy gal, I know that. I accomplished a lot this week: recorded and released a new video [see it here!], finished documentation for a revised product to launch next week, got ahead on some school work, and prepped for a large Open House event Parallax held for National Robotics Week.

Despite all that, I'm still surprised at how fast this week passed! Not to mention the weekend - it's really time to go back to work tomorrow?

And my birthday is only three weeks away. What the what?

But more on National Robotics Week, because I'm quite proud of the event I was in charge of organizing. I mean, I'm generally not one to "toot my own horn" - but it was an awesome event. We probably had well over 200 people show up, which for us [and being the first year we're doing this] is a BIG deal. We had demos, tours and raffles, and I don't think anyone left without a smile on their face.

On another note, thanks to a good four hours of hard work today, I can now say with confidence that I have graduate school on lock. Just a couple more hours of programming and I'll have my part of our "group" project done! With that out of the way, if my useless partner doesn't come through, I'll have a very good case to make to the professor as to why it wasn't completed on time.

HUZZAH!

Oh hai!

Well, as you can probably imagine, I've been really busy recently. (And I'm a terrible blogger.) While I've temporarily got the school monster under control, it still keeps me on my toes while trying to keep up with work.

This weekend I finally had a break from classes and spend most of my time designing a Jeopardy-style buzzer system for the Sacramento Rivercats. Unfortunately, Steven and I didn't get the mounting stuff together before opening day, so it won't get implemented until the next homestand. 

Speaking of, Opening Day for the Rivercats is tomorrow! I'm super excited baseball is back in full swing, since going to the games is always a ton of fun. There's nothing quite like a nice California evening, cold beer, good friends, and sitting back and enjoying a game.

Go Cats!

The other portion of my weekend was spent playing my new 3DS! Seriously, it. Is...Awesome-sauce. One of the best spontaneous lunch hour purchases I've ever made. Of course I grabbed the teal one (because black is so bo-ring) and Lego Star Wars III to go with it, and it has not disappointed. Seriously, so, so cool. I'm too lazy to go into details at the moment, but don't worry, they're coming.

I also posted a new video at work. (Because I'm a video-making machine!) And if you love nerdy white girl dancing, then you're gonna love this. Someone already thought I was dancing the Elaine Benes dance from Seinfeld...so you know it's gonna be good.

And for those inclined, I'm now a 'Twitter-er'. You can follow me @parallaxianjess.

Just six more weeks until the end of the semester! I promise I'll have more love for you then, internets.

I KNOW I can, I KNOW I can...

It's amazing how childhood books can still hold lessons and relevance for us today. Take The Little Engine That Could, for example. Almost everyone had this heartwarming tale read to them as a child - the story of a little engine who worked incredibly hard to pull a train up and over a large hill. But as it was read to you, you never thought that you were learning anything.

I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

Now it's no secret that my first graduate semester has been a wee bit of a challenge. And on an emotional level, it's no secret that its been a wee bit of a challenge for me to come to terms that fact.

But just like the little engine, I've got an amazing support system to help me pull this train up my "academic hill". My mom, my best friend, who's always there to offer wise words - even with a three hour time difference.

And of course, Steven, my boyfriend. He deals with my "academic crazy" on a daily basis, but never gets frustrated (or at least doesn't appear so) and never stops believing that I can get through the semester. He's the perfect voice of reason, constantly reminding me to stop living in my head and just get things done! I don't know what I'd do without him.

I'm truly very blessed, and while I'm facing my first academic "hill" - I know I can chug-a-chug over it. It'll be a lot of work, but I can make it through. This semester may be a hurdle, but I'm learning a lot, and I can confidently apply those lessons to future semesters to make them easier.

Look out world, get ready to see me shine!

Engineers can be cute too!

So many of my female friends with blogs post a lot about their super cute outfits. Now, normally I don't put too much thought into what I wear - I've become a jeans and a T-Shirt type gal. But some days, I actually decide to put on something somewhat fashionable.

One of those days was today!

I don't know why really, but I felt like being cute today. Maybe it was the product training I was slated to do, maybe it was wanting to overcome the dreariness that is outside, or maybe I just wanted to prove that us engineers can also have some fashion sense.

Anyway, the highlight of the outfit, I think it my high-top red Chucks. Seriously. They're my new favorite thing ever - super comfortable and super nerdy!

In other news, I've got a new video posted, where you (yes you!) can learn to program your very own robot. Check it out!

And in final good news - my professor told us not to worry about our test scores. He does curve very generously, so we shouldn't worry about this test's effect on our grades. We just have to do very good on our projects. So good thing it's supposed to rain all weekend, because I need to put a lot of work into that!

Have a good weekend, interwebs! Me? I'm about to take the third part of my Numerical Analysis midterm. And guess what (big surprise) the teacher's late!

Wahoo...I just want to be done already. Sheesh.

Wohn, wohn, wohn...

So I bombed my first test last night.

Like, really bombed.

And before you ask, no, this is not some Jessica-mentality where bombing a test means getting an 85%. I mean, I really, epically failed, like I'm hoping for a 65%.

Normal people bombing.

Needless to say, this is more than a little unsettling. As a person that has always been fantastic at school without really needing to try all that hard, this is an extremely humbling moment.

And not a humbling moment like when someone says they're 'humbled' by winning an Oscar. What? No. You're not humbled, you just won a frakkin' prestigious award. That's the opposite of humbling. The other guys who lost, they're humbled. Learn English.

Anyway, there are a myriad of explanations and excuses as to why I did poorly on this test. They're perfectly plausible, and I really shouldn't let this get to me so much. Allow me to take a minute and rant about some of them.

One - The professor mentioned that this would be primarily a design test, so that's what I prepared for. However, as it turned out, the majority of the questions were terminology based, which I hadn't worked on.

Two - I was stuck in traffic for an hour and a half before getting to the exam. And despite leaving work early anticipating a bit of traffic - only to be met with an enormous amount for no reason, I only made it to class with seconds to spare. I was frazzled, and therefore a bit off my game.

Three - I have a tendency to over-think situations, making them out to be more complicated than they are. One of my major flaws, if you will. So on the first part of the test, which I should have nailed, I ignored my gut instinct to cater to my over-thought logic. STUPID! And it will have cost me 15 points.

Four - During the last couple years of my college career, I was spoiled by teachers who allowed open book/open note tests. They realized that the value in engineering was not necessarily memorizing equations, circuits and timing diagrams, but rather knowing where to find the information and how to use them in applications. Definitely not the case for this class.

Now there are two ways I can think of this situation, My first instinct (and what I did a lot of last night) is to freak-out and beat myself up and wallow in my failures, whining about how this shouldn't be happening to me.

Or two, I can learn from my mistakes, focus on the positive, brush myself off and work my toosh off to prove myself and my mastery of the subject matter. After all, success builds character and failure reveals it, right?

So that's what I'm going to do. For example, regarding the first question I so stupidly missed, I will now forever remember that Disconnects A & B are disconnects with data transfers and Disconnects 1 & 2 are disconnects without data transfers. 

And even if he doesn't curve, and I end up needing to drop the class, it won't be the end of the world. Honestly, the course is becoming so specific that it really won't have any practical applications for me outside of the classroom, plus I'll have more time to focus on other things - like side electronics projects, improving my Spanish and exercising.

As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, "I didn't fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong." 

Everything in life is a learning experience, and me? I'm certainly going to learn from this one.

I can't be Wonder Woman every day.

Happy Anniversary!

Since I have my Microprocessor System Design I Midterm on Tuesday, most of this weekend was spent preparing for that. However, after studying for most of Saturday morning, Steven and I decided to get on our bikes and enjoy the gorgeous weather. We headed over to Fox & Goose Public House for some delicious brunch & Bloody Mary's.

When we got back from our bike ride, I got back to studying only to have a patented Jessica-Freak-Out-Moment.  For those of you not aware, these moments happen when I become increasingly overwhelmed with a class, reach a breaking point, think I'm not going to get an A, and therefore decide I can't do it. Thankfully, Steven seems well equipped to deal these freak-outs and he talked me down. (He's just so great!)

Even so, I decided to call it quits on the studying for the evening and just watch a movie.

The next day was our Three-Year of Dating Anniversary (yay)! Steven had to go into the stadium to work an event, which was OK because it gave me time to recover the time I'd lost due to my episode the night before. I put on my new thinking-touque and was ready to hit the books!

I am really quite fond of this hat. It's amazing.

In the light of the new day, my studying went much better, and I even knocked out part of our first project which isn't due until the 29th.

That evening Steven and I went to The Loving Hut for our anniversary dinner. It's a vegan restaurant that just opened in Sacramento in December. I know, you're thinking 'gross!' but oh my goodness it was so delicious! I had the Sauteed Green Beans & Tofu while Steven had the Kung Pow 'Chicken'. I highly recommend you try this place out. (No worries, it's not super fancy, Steven and I aren't really fancy people so we kept it low-key for our anniversary.)

Afterwards, we picked up some dessert to enjoy at home while I knocked out the last bit of my studying. I can honestly say now that I don't know how much more I can prepare for this exam. 

And when I usually feel that way, I ace it. Not to brag or anything, but it did work for my Numerical Analysis midterm.

...And that's just a great feeling!