end of fall term

Well, that's that. I finished my first term of grad school, so I'm 1/5 done with all of my grad school classes. As expected, I have no life and I'm broke. Big surprise. My existence has much less variety than undergrad - it basically consists of schoolwork, food, sleep, and some video games to keep me sane.

The work wasn't really as I expected though, I was hoping to have only a few hard things to focus work on but I'm being pulled in more directions than in undergrad. I thought I would just have to put in hard work and I could get everything done, but instead I am overwhelmed, I literally do not have enough time to finish everything and have to pick and choose what to complete. Maybe that's how the real world is, but it's still BS.

I got a B+ in quantum. I was really hoping for an A. I think I'm going to vow to get an A in Quantum Mechanics II. Next term should not be nearly as bad now that I am familiar with how grad school works. I didn't think the QM final was too bad, but I got 78/100 on it. Oksana graded hard. Oh well. Grad school is binary.

The most amusing part of the QM final was that someone wrote on the board 'Find Bound States and Energy Spectrum' and drew something that started out as a normal QM potential and turned into Super Mario Bros, with pipes and a castle and everything. Obviously the underground pipes represent solutions for E <>

I finished grading exams. My iPod played the perfect song when I finished - "Who Will Grade Your Work?" by Piled Higher and Deeper (yes the webcomic), a song about being a TA.

Now I am screwing around in iTunes before going back to FFX. I've set myself some iTunes challenges. Right now I'm trying to make a list of the top five most personally influential songs. Not my current favorite songs, but the songs that changed everything when I first heard them. I know about three or four without question, but #5 is a tricky one to decide. Try it yourself. iTunes makes this sort of endeavor much easier because I can sift through every song I own quickly and efficiently.

I'm also thinking about top five songs from soundtracks. I set a bunch aside, but when you come across one that is absolutely on the list the others just don't compare. The Indiana Jones theme without a question is in the top five, and probably Back to the Future as well. And as for top five video game songs, well there's a lot to thing about there too. I'd say FF7 is going to have a song in there , and the Katamari Damacy theme definitely.

I have been wearing my Black Mesa hoodie nearly continuously since I made it. I had to dress up nice for my comm speech because I needed every edge to pass it, but pretty much all the time other than that. I like my Black Mesa hoodie.