Here’s a quick post to prove I’m not dead. Here’s the lowdown on what’s been going on in my pretty un-exciting life:

1. Amazingly enough, even with all of the stressful things that occurred last semester, I made it out with the best grades I have ever received while in college. I received four As and two Bs.
2. I went on a trip with my boyfriend, David, to Las Vegas for some relaxation before classes started again. Someday, I’ll have to get around to posting photos.
3. Completely unrelated to the above, I received an offer for a paid internship in Las Vegas, Nevada. I probably shouldn’t disclose more than that here, but I will say that I’m really excited about it.
4. I completely forgot to post a “year in review” post for 2009. Someone remind me, will you?

I’m in another full load of classes this semester so I’ll be as busy as always. I’m way behind on a lot of things, including Q*bee trades, so my apologies to my bee friends… it’s been far too long.

So, being as it has been a mere 2.5 months since my last post, I had better attempt to fill in the gap. The fall 2009 semester has started and I’m already aghast that enrollment for next spring is starting soon (October 30!).

This semester I’m in:
- ANTH 618: Religion in Culture – really, really interesting class. I have found, however, that the majority of students seem to be anthro majors and therefore a lot of the terminology and such flies way over my little CIS head. Not to mention that I’ve been trained the last two years to think of everything in sequence and logically – and things don’t always go that way in class (not that that’s a bad thing). Studying culture is entirely different than computing, that’s for sure.
- DEN 325: Personal & Professional Development – dumb requirement we have to take in order to graduate. Yes, some of what we discuss in this class is worthwhile – but I was told in class that I needed a $400 outfit with a designer purse to get job offers. I’m not kidding.
- PHYS 114: General Physics II – getting the class-with-a-science-prereq out of the way. It sucks, and quite frankly I probably won’t use anything from this class afterwards. I’m also not really digging the abstract-ness of the concepts (flux! Henrys! DANGEROUS ELECTRICAL CURRENTS!)
- CIS 501: Software Architecture – I’m really enjoying this class. We hadn’t really been taught previously how to lay out programs before coding and although it was awkward coding from diagrams the first time, I can definitely say that it’s a time saver and makes things so squeaky clean it makes my nerd knees week (say that ten times fast). We’ve been using StarUML to draw up the diagrams, which is a free solution for those interested.
- CIS 308: C/C++ Programming – I’m actually retaking this, as I had dropped it halfway through last semester. I should have this bitch knocked out though because I’m having an easier time this go around. I still hate C, however. If the devil went down to Georgia, C would be in the back seat with a baseball bat smacking little old Grannys’ mailboxes and kicking puppies. Srsly.
- STAT 325: Intro to Statistics – This has been pretty easy so far and I actually had my first exam tonight. I’m pretty certain I did really well but as always I’ll only know for sure once I see my grade online.

My course load has been pretty bad this semester, but not nearly as bad as fall 2008 (I shudder at the thought). That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been around here… the other reason is severe stress in other areas, namely some personal issues with family members that I won’t detail here. I don’t really foresee things changing until Christmas break, but at which time I’ll likely be working 40 hours a week again so who knows. I’m not making any promises.

The photo isn’t random here, these are just some books I’ve been poking around in lately. I haven’t got very far as of yet but I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t claim to be knowledgeable about religion unless you start probing around in areas you previously had overlooked. I’m hoping to pick up some other religious materials soon… preferably over those I’m not too acquainted with, like Islam, Buddhism, etc. Any recommendations would be nice – although I would prefer ones that at least try to be academic – I’m not amused with Crocoduck reasoning.

Anyway, I’m still active around Twitter (@heatheronnen) and Facebook (I don’t add you unless I know you, but you can try if you really want to) if you’re interested. Hopefully it won’t be another 2.5 months before my next post…

Oh, and for some reason I’ve suddenly fell in love with Fleet Foxes.

Since late May, I’ve been experimenting with patio gardening. I’ll just say up front that I have almost no real gardening experience and so everything has been a trial-and-error thing. It’s been going pretty good so far except for the blight (I think) that my plants caught recently. I’ve been spraying them with a baking soda/soapy water/Miracle Grow concoction and it seems to have helped (I hope!). Anyway, I wanted to share some information about how I’ve been germinating my seeds in less than a week (and in some cases less than 24 hours) after “planting” them. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve started Folding@Home again. If you don’t know what that is, check out the FAQ. I used to do it quite awhile ago but I stopped and can’t even remember why; it was definitely gone when I reformatted my computer but anyway. It’s a pretty neat way to help out researching diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, ALS, etc. I know I don’t always have the time or money to help out as much as I’d like with the various walkathons and fundraisers they have so at least I can donate my computer’s processing power to helping out. It’s pretty easy — I just run it when my computer is already on, and it runs in the background doing the rest. Without trying to reach any goal I’ve already completed one work unit. There’s even teams you can join which is pretty cool.

I feel like I’m rambling, however, so I guess the point of this entry is that if you’re interested in helping to fight diseases and wouldn’t mind a program running nearly unnoticeably in the background then this is pretty neat. Also for the biology/genetics nerds who like to view the folding action real-time

As I was reviewing my financial aid statements today (which are better than in years past) I realized that I’ve accumulated quite a bit of debt in the form of college loans. I always knew I had quite a bit, but I guess I never fully realized how much it was. I don’t particularly regret it because unfortunately my financial situation didn’t allow me any other option but loans. All the same, though, it sucks to see that I’m already in debt to the tune of $10,000 with two more years to go. At least it seems like I’ll have to take little to no loan help this year because I’ve finally been able to move into a much cheaper apartment which saves me about $2,000/semester.

I’ve begun looking through my stuff for things I might be able to eBay off to put towards paying some of the loans off. We’ll see how that goes — eBay is scary, and I hate the fact they charge you to list items* and then again when you sell them. Amazon might be the way to go, I don’t know.

[Edit] * Apparently eBay lets you have 3 free listings a month. I’m trying it with one item to see how it pans out.

How did you cope with your college debt?