Thank The Flu For The Movie Binge

Hello fans,

First, I want to apologize for not posting in quite some time. When I was ready for another post last week, I got smacked with the flu. It began on Monday afternoon and ended sometime between last Thursday afternoon and last Friday. Because I couldn't do much, I figured that it's a good time to catch up on my movies. You can deduce how much time I spent in bed from the list of movies I watched since I was sick.

• The Godfather
• The Godfather Part II
• The Godfather Part III
  
• West Side Story
• Rain Man

After those movies, I was inspired to print out the list of AFI's top 100 movies that was published in 2007, which was the 10th anniversary of the original list. I'm looking to watching most, if not all, of the movies on the list. As of right now, I have watched 22 movies on the list. And I'm only counting those movies where I can recollect at least 2/3 of the movie. So there are some movies that I've seen when I was little and don't remember much, and I have therefore not counted them. Right now, I'm watching Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Most of the ones I watched on the list I really enjoyed, but there are some that I didn't enjoy much. I didn't expect to fall in love with all the movies on this list, but I have grown to appreciate them and understand why they're on the list.

Things in the classroom have been good so far. A challenge I've been facing with is how to deal with the material that I was supposed to cover when I was sick. I think that the class has been able to recover nicely since I was sick, and I've been trying to backfill the material when I can. As time goes on, I consider more and more the possibility of getting a PhD in Statistics Education or something of the like. It's something that I love and want to make a serious career out of it, and there's plenty of time to decide what to do.

As for this weekend, I'm going to watch some more excellent movies. Here's some of the movies that I'm looking to watch over the weekend.

• On The Waterfront
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Scarface
• Silence of the Lambs
• City Lights
• The Graduate

I know it'll be a stretch to watch all of those movies, but I can try. Have a great weekend, everyone.

Awake....somehow

Unfortunately, it's Monday. Back to waking up at 8 in the morning, going to morning class, and doing all sorts of work throughout the day. At least the weekend was not as bad as it looked on Friday.

As I was driving to WV to spend the weekend and a B&B with my lady, my car's "check engine" light was periodically going on and off. When I was roughly 60 miles away from Blacksburg, I realized that it was not worth the risk. So I turned around and put my car in the shop. There's a part that needs to be replaced, so I won't have it back until mid-week. Because of this, Annette came down and spent the weekend in Blacksburg as well. We went to Walmart a billion times, and I don't really know why. We ate some awesome food, especially at Mac & Bob's in Salem and the Meditarranean Restaurant on Main St. nest to Moe's. Be warned though that the food in that place can give you some terrible gas. I'll leave it at that

We saw Dan in Real Life on campus, and it was a great movie and better than my above average expectations. It reminded me of his serious role in Little Miss Sunshine, and part of Michael on "The Office". Also, I was supposed to keep it as a surprise for WV, but we watched season 7 of "The King of Queens". I think there's about 3 more episodes we didn't see, so I'll have to get season 8 before I head up to WV in March, which is when we rescheduled the trip for.

Ok, I need to stop typing, make lunch, and get to my 9:05 class. Hopefully, my frequency of posting is making some people happier ;-D Peace out.

Because The People Want It

It was brought to my attention that I should post on a more frequent basis. And if people want more posting, then they shall receive more posting. So here goes...

The first week of the semester is coming to a close, and it's been a pleasant one. Classes don't seem to be much harder than the ones from last semester. And teaching is the best thing ever...at least for me it is. It seems like the students enjoy my mildly crazy teaching style, or they're wide awake from eating lunch before class. In any case, I had them do a mini assignment where they basically introduce themselves to me in the form of a very short bio. There's a lot of interesting people in my class, but I rather not share because of confidentiality issues. So trust me that I have an interesting group of students. I've been telling some people that I have the best job in the world, and I mean that because this is what I'm looking to do with my life.

Besides that, I'm about ready to call it a night. After my 9:05 class, I begin to head up to DC to enjoy a three day weekend with my lady. I was worried that I couldn't make the trip between the snow we got today and my car temporarily acting up. I'll probably be helping her spruce up her new apartment, and I'll relax some while I have the chance to. Maybe I'll knock out a chunk of Eldest, which is shaping up to be yet another great book. Yes, I'm sticking to my word that the Inheritance Series is better than Harry Potter. Eragon doesn't even need his dragon to take care of that whiny brat. To Harry Potter fans, I'm sorry if I offended you.

Even better than this three day weekend is going to be my Bed and Breakfast endeavor with my lady in West Virginia next weekend. I would like to do some hiking in one of the national forests that are adjacent to the B&B, and I would like to spot some bears in the forests. I'll make sure to take some pictures.

Good night and good luck.

Twas the Night Before a New Semester...

So 9:05 tomorrow morning marks the beginning of a new semester. Last semester was a pleasant one. I was introduced to graduate work and the duties of a TA. I'm pleased that I was able to handle the work well, and as a result, the bar gets placed a little bit higher. The courses are going to be slightly more challenging, and this will be the first semester that I'm teaching a full course.
Nonetheless, I am very excited to embark on this journey. At the end of the journey, I'll be presented with one of the hardest tests I will ever take...the qualifying exam. 12 hours over 3 days of testing what I learned during this academic year. I think that I can come out victorious, but it will come with some hard work and dedication. Also, I hope that I'll be a great success in leading 120 engineers to appreciate statistics.
Before I hit the sack, I'm going to write up another homework assignment and enjoy some bedtime tea. Until then, auf wiedersehen.

Let's Check The Scorecard

Let's see how well I succeeded in my list from last blog. Comments are in bold

• A moderate amount of sleep. This one should be easily attainable. Great success.
  
• Finish Final Fantasy XII. Failed.
  
• Play Guitar Hero on the surround sound. Failed.
  
• Annoy my father. Again, this should be easily attainable. Great Success.
  
• Read at least one page of Wicked, with the hopes of finishing the book. This one may be tough. 10 pages, so great success.
  
• Annoy my stepmother. Another easy task. Great success.
  
• See one of my roommates from Loyola, Kevin. Not only would I get to see him and hang out, but I can get a pair of sneakers I left there over the summer. Great success.
  
• Bust open my saxophone. It's been collecting dust since I'm not playing at Virginia Tech.
• Find a way to watch the VT/UVA game if it's not on national TV. Great success!
  
• Exercise. I don't know if this will be easy or hard yet. Got sick, so failure.
  
• Study something that pertains to statistics. This one may be very difficult. Does thinking about it count? That's your call.

So not so bad for a list of goals. I'll write more when I'm feeling better and when I don't have so much work to do.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

So this is my first winter in the mountains, and the climate decided to give me a nice warm welcome with some flurries and lots of wind. According to some students, people have been knocked down by the wind, so it seems like the best strategy is to stay indoors and to avoid wind tunnels. Let's see how that works out.
Yesterday, I cooked dinner for one of my neighbors because she turned 22 today. There was gnocchi (Italian dumplings) with roma tomatoes, kalimata olives, and smoked mozzarella. For dessert, I made Italian cheesecake, which is cheesecake with ricotta cheese instead of cream cheese. Both of those things came out wonderfully, so it was a good night. The interesting part was that I woke up around 2:30AM with everything on. I didn't even know I went to sleep. The good part of waking up then was that I got to seize the chance of moving my car from the parking meters into a good spot in front of my building. If you live or have seen Blacksburg, you know how horrendous parking is. For the Loyola folks, parking at the FAC was better than this situation.
Tomorrow's going to be an awesome day because it's the last day of classes before Thanksgiving break. I'm going to NY for the break, but I'm not going to be doing much. I want to spend the first couple of days not thinking about grad school, but that will probably fail. And then I'll get myself ready for an exam that I have when I come back. It's the 3rd of 3 long-winded exams. I've averaged 2 hours and 37 minutes on the first two exams, so I'm expecting the third one to be a long one as well. The good news is that I feel like I'm grasping more and more of the material as time passes, and it showed when I did better on the second exam than the first. Ok, I'm done with geek talk.
Saturday's going to be interesting because there's a football game because I've noticed that a lot of people are leaving town tomorrow or Saturday morning. Will the stadium be filled with 60,000+ screaming fans? I hope so. The only game that matters now is next Saturday at Virginia (grrrrrr). At least my mom will enjoy Saturday's game because she wants to annoy her neighbor, who's a big University of Miami fan.
Since the break's coming very soon, here's some goals that would be nice to accomplish. And if I forget, I can come back to this post to check. I'll take any suggestions for adding to the list.

• A moderate amount of sleep. This one should be easily attainable.
• Finish Final Fantasy XII.
• Play Guitar Hero on the surround sound.
• Annoy my father. Again, this should be easily attainable.
• Read at least one page of Wicked, with the hopes of finishing the book. This one may be tough.
• Annoy my stepmother. Another easy task.
• See one of my roommates from Loyola, Kevin. Not only would I get to see him and hang out, but I can get a pair of sneakers I left there over the summer.
• Bust open my saxophone. It's been collecting dust since I'm not playing at Virginia Tech.
• Find a way to watch the VT/UVA game if it's not on national TV.
• Exercise. I don't know if this will be easy or hard yet.
• Study something that pertains to statistics. This one may be very difficult.
  

So there's my laundry list of goals. As you can see, I've played it safe with the difficulty, so I can feel good about my self if I can knock out most or all of that list. Back to some Guitar Hero and reading before going to sleep.

Good fight; good night.

New Stuff And A Realization

So today I went to Old Navy because I've been wanting a pair of corduroys for the longest time, and I realized something in the dressing room that's been very depressing and frustrating. All the work I put into losing the weight over the last two years seems to have disappeared completely. The difference between the time I put on the weight sophomore year of college and now is that I've been eating more fruits and vegetables and less crap, yet I still manage to put on the weight. Again, I find myself going with the Jon Celso system of learning where I have to do something stupid to learn a lesson.
After arguing (with some listening) with my girlfriend, I've managed to commit to myself and my readers that I'm going to get back on track starting now. I'm going to track what I eat, Weight Watchers style, and finding a new workout plan. I've been going to the gym on occasion at VT, but I need to find a more consistent schedule that I can execute, regardless of how much homework I encounter. And this is something the I will be doing, not wishing that I was going this.
I also needed some new footwear because my boots have soles on the bottom, and my sneakers have paper-thin soles, along with a hole on the side of my right sneaker. Now I'm ready to hike and exercise with dry, warm feet.
On another note, I want to let everyone know that I had an awesome weekend with my lady. We went to the VT/Florida State game on Saturday, and we were happy that we held out in the freezing cold after the 20-point fourth quarter. The next day, we hung around campus and spent some time with James, a fellow first-year student, and his wife. I believe that this was the first time that two married (or close to married) couples hung out, but note that I don't have much of a long-term memory. Because Monday was a federal holiday, I got to spend another day with the most wonderful woman in the world. We returned Evan Almighty to Blockbuster, which we both felt was a very good movie, and we had lunch at Gillies, the vegetarian restaurant in Blacksburg. They make a mean quesadilla and a meaner vegetarian chili. Unfortunately, my lady had to leave me, so she could go to work on Tuesday, an idea that I thought was silly. And after she left, I had a very difficult time sleeping because the bed contained one, not two this time. Even after watching a crappy movie, Dead Man on Campus, I still could not fall asleep. I only got four hours of sleep after falling asleep at 5 AM, but I made it through the day strong.
Tomorrow, I get to present a group project for SAS class, the final assignment and the final class. I am very psyched because I am sick and tired of going to a class that I learned almost nothing in. And the other two days before Thanksgiving break seem to be very easygoing. I'm ready to go home and see my parents, although they're probably ashamed that I've put on more weight since I last saw them. The break poses as a great opportunity to get myself back on track because I'm still transitioning between undergraduate and graduate studies. Many a time I doubt myself that I'll even get my Masters degree because I doubt my abilities sometimes, especially when I hit a speed hump every now and then in the form of a difficult exam or a strenuous homework assignment.
Hopefully, I have brought everyone in internetland up to speed on what I have been up to. Perhaps the next email will discuss some success, whether it be on the scale or on the transcript. Auf wiedersehen.