Spring Break - Not Really

Today marks my official end to spring break. I feel as though I have accomplished nothing.

I spent the first weekend of break on the road with the football team I intern with. The team played up in Madison, Wisc., so I took the team bus up to the game. The game was quite an experience, and not necessarily in a good way. That is a whole different story though.

During the week, I worked at both my part time job and had office hours at my internship. I had another football game at the end of spring break, but luckily it was a home game. The downside of the game being at home was that I had to be at the arena six hours early to help prep the field and arena.

Free time? Break time? It was nearly nonexistent. It was supposed to be my time to catch up on homework. Much to my luck, my one day with absolutely no work or office hours happened to be the day I was home alone and my cable and internet went out. I ended up spending most of the day on the phone trying to get everything fixed. It was a bit of a pain.

Now, I head to class tonight. I feel still slightly behind in most classes - definitely more in some than in others. I am hoping this first week is relatively easy. I still have a lot to do and I hope I can get it done.

Finally... almost... there...

This package has been a great learning experience, but it's also been a royal pain in the you know what.

Laura and I basically have flip-flopping schedules. She is available when I am not, and vice-versa. It has been borderline hell to get us together at the same time, in the same place, for more than a few hours at a time.

I feel like I have been slacking because I simply don't know what I am doing in this class. Prior to the class, I hadn't touched a camera other than the small camcorder my dad bought about five years ago.

Also, the only video editing I have ever done was in Reporting and Writing II last semester, and we used iMovie. Once again, this has been a great learning experience, however I'm still so far behind everyone else in the class.

I know I am dragging Laura down, and I feel bad for it. This has been one hell of a half semester so far. I've had two minor surgeries on top of working part time, having an internship requiring around 18 hours per week, and taking 15 hours worth of classes this semester. All while commuting nearly an hour and one-half each way to and from class.

I put way too much on my plate this semester. I wish I had realized it sooner. Then again, I never planned to have to get my wisdom teeth out on a Monday morning in the middle of the semester.

So, those are my thoughts and feelings thus far, the week before spring break. I am overwhelmed beyond belief. And completely and totally blunt.

So far this semester...

This semester has been my worst semester by far. I have put far too much on my plate, plus I was stopped dead in my tracks for nearly a week with my wisdom tooth surgery.

I am usually on top of everything and I know what's going on. In this class, I am pretty far behind. I was put into this class because Howard's class was full and I had to take this class to get credit and to graduate in the fall.

Don't get me wrong, I am learning a lot in this class. However, everything I am learning is everything everyone else has already learned, so it's a little overwhelming.

Plus, I work and have an internship on top of a full courseload. Throw in two random surgeries (one later on this week), and I am further behind than I would like to be. I'm normally a good student, this is just not my semester.

Online Story Telling

Race car drivers have the ability to see something and process it very quickly. When traveling around a track at high speeds, a driver has to react to avoid hitting an oil slick or debris on the track.

The New York Times site features an interactive game in which the viewer can get an idea of how fast a race car driver must react. The player sees a sequence of four arrows in a given time period and must repeat them. At one-half second, I got four out of five patterns correct. I failed miserably the three other tests of one-quarter second, .15 seconds and .1 seconds.

Our group could make some sort of interactive page to simply raise funds for the team, in which a sponsor donates an amount of money depending upon the number of clicks, or something along those lines. Another idea is to have a game where you can shoot soccer balls into a goal from various angles.

NY Times Site