Today’s goal was to ace the second ECE 4000 exam. Dr. Callen changed the exam quite a bit from previous semesters so there were a few more surprises than I would have liked. I don’t feel like it went as well as the first exam but I also don’t think it went terribly either.
After classes I began working on the second ECE 3042 writing assignment—yes, one thing after the other. It’s a one-page memorandum so it could be worse. I found that LaTeX does not have a standard memo class so that presented some issues. I ended up taking USM’s custom LaTeX memo class and modifying it slightly.
I delivered my presentation on the problem of providing Quality of Service in packet-switched networks. It wasn’t perfect and Dr. Callen grilled me a bit on some details but it’s now out of the way.
Juan joined Titus and I for our usual post-recitation lunch at the Li’l Dino.
In the evening, I started working sample tests in preparation for the second exam in ECE 4000.
I finished the first complete draft of my research paper at 4:30 AM EST and I was unconcious shortly thereafter.
The day would start again at 8:00 AM. Ancient Greece was cancelled today—quite the godsend—so I had three hours to proofread and revise my paper. I turned in my paper and slides at the beginning of ECE 4000 at 2:05 PM. Apparently I didn’t proofread well enough because Titus later found an error in my first sentence. D’oh! I’m glad it’s over with at any rate.
The next big thing is my presentation. I volunteered to go early this time so I could get it out of the way.
Ah, it’s all glamour in the life of a college student. I spent all day working on the research paper and slides. There might have been some other stuff but I really can’t remember.
Ah, what a day.
I spent the first half of the day fixing my computer since I did myself the favor of breaking it yesterday. I found a custom boot disk image creatively called Emergency Boot CD that was helpful at times. I found the Smart Boot Manager to be the most useful feature on the disk. I eventually got Windows booting again by some combination of fixboot, fixmbr, and buildcfg from the Recovery Console. I’m still not sure exactly what fixed it but I did learn that Windows won’t let you enter the Recovery Console without the administrator password. I had long since forgotten/disabled the Administrator account so it posed a problem. Luckily, I found a way to disable the password for access to the console. I don’t think it’s a particularly useful security feature. If someone has physical access to my computer there are worse things they could do.
Fixing the computer was fun and all but Titus wanted to make my day a little brighter too by torpedoing my research topic. I should be grateful, I guess. It could have been worse if I had found out later. Basically, one of my fundamental assumptions was that ATM networks were packet-switched networks. Well, they’re not (couldn’t be further from the truth, even!). In the end, I had to start the research process anew. I eventually decided to shift to examining Quality of Service over packet-switched networks.
To top it all off, Kat was in town and she dropped by to visit. It’s about the last day that I would want anyone visiting but I guess I managed. Kat seems to really be getting into her whole new art discipline.
