by carolynk
24. October 2009 10:42
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Posted by Carolyn Keenan
Junior, Computer Science
This Friday I had a few friends over to carve pumpkins, drink apple cider, and play cards. Carving the pumpkins was a little bit tricky--all we had were kitchen knives. I remember carving pumpkins as a kid with these special little saws with orange handles, but we looked everywhere and couldn't find any. They must be sold out for the season. Anyway, steak knives seemed to work.
I got fairly impatient with the carving, and my artistic abilities aren't the best, so I went for humor and carved the letter pi into mine (get it? pumpkin pie!). My friend Sam managed to carve the Incredible Hulk on one side and Picasso on the other, while the other two pumpkins were classic scary faces. We put them out on the balcony and lit them up. It was a miserable and rainy night, so they looked fearsome. Since the weather was so crummy, we stayed warm and dry, playing cards and watching goofy YouTube videos late into the night.
Next weekend is the much-anticipated Halloween party. I'm going to miss a good part of the weekend because I'm going to a programming competition in Cincinnati, but I think I'll be home in time for the Saturday night block party, which is always pretty fun. At the very least, we'll be able to light up the Jack-O-Lanterns again for everyone to admire.
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by carolynk
15. October 2009 15:31
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Posted by Carolyn Keenan
Junior, Computer Science
This quarter I was able to fit in a history class, just for fun. The course is titled "Shakespearean England," and it covers England from Richard II to Elizabeth I. It's great--in the middle of the day I can take a break from all of the math and computer science classes to hear about kings, burning people at the stake, royal intrigue, assassination plots, religious leaders, courtly love affairs, etc.
The professor assigns a lot of primary source readings, which to me are the most fascinating part of the course. We've read Henry VIII's love letters to Anne Boleyn, descriptions of royal families, vividly detailed first-hand accounts of battles, and sermons by leaders in the church (both pre- and post- Reformation). It's really interesting to get into the heads of those people living in the 15th and 16th centuries. Even though the class is a lot of reading, it's a good break from all of my math and CS-related courses and activities.
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by carolynk
1. October 2009 22:10
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Posted by Carolyn Keenan
Junior, Computer
Science
Tonight was the first intramural broomball game of the season. This is my second year with the same team--the Penguins--so we decided to try out the competitive league. Although I've played intramural soccer and floor hockey, I'd have to say that broomball is the most entertaining and enjoyable. The game takes place on an ice rink, and the players wear sneakers and run on the ice, trying to shoot a ball into a goal with sticks that slightly resemble brooms. It's fairly dangerous, so we wear helmets.
Luckily the ice wasn't very slippery tonight--we could actually run instead of just sliding around. To my surprise, we were playing against one of my fellow ambassadors, Joe Morris. Despite this familiarity, we showed no mercy. My roommate scored a goal pretty early on, and we were getting some good shots on goal, but the opposing team managed to slip one past our goalkeeper at the last second. The game ended in a tie. Perhaps fate will bring us together for a rematch in the playoffs.
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by carolynk
18. September 2009 12:16
| | Posted by Carolyn Keenan
Junior, Computer Science
Today marks the end of the second week of the quarter. I'm finally starting to fall back into the familiar pattern of waking up early and going to classes. Fortunately, I have a little bit of free time this quarter to do fun things and hang out with friends. My roommate's sister decided that, since we're renting a nice big house, we should host Taco Thursdays. So we had a few friends over and made a huge taco feast. We made chicken tacos, beef tacos, taco salad, soft tacos, hard tacos...and most importantly, we all wore pajamas. I'm not sure what the connection is between tacos and pajamas, but it was great to relax with friends and enjoy a good meal. This weekend we're planning on heading out to the Farmer's Market and the annual Pawpaw Festival. I went last year and enjoyed some pawpaw-flavored ice cream made by Snowville Creamery. I think we had some sort of pawpaw funnel cake, too. In between these fun activities, I'll be doing some homework, but that's the way that college goes. I'm very grateful to have some free time, especially while the weather is still really nice. |
by matts
18. May 2009 10:44
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Posted by Matt Sargent
Senior, Computer Science
This past weekend was full of people coming to visit me on campus. I spent Friday night finishing a take home midterm and some other assorted homework so that I could have the rest of the weekend off.
On Saturday, one of my best friends from high school came down to visit. It was the first time that he had been to OU and he really liked spending the day here. I was able to show him campus and the surrounding area before going to get dinner uptown. We met up with some of my friends from OU and ended up hanging out at their apartment for the majority of the night. In the morning, we got breakfast at Union Street Diner before my friend left.
About an hour after he was on the road my parents got on campus. They came down to visit and also to go to a senior awards banquet at night. We had a nice dinner in the Baker Center ballroom followed by the awards ceremony. Unfortunately, my parents had to leave right after the ceremony was over in order to make it back to Cleveland at a reasonable hour. I am happy that I had so many people come to campus this weekend, but now I have to play catch-up in my classes and at work.
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by matts
14. May 2009 19:52
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Posted by Matt Sargent
Senior, Computer Science
Today I was at a research expo for the project that I am working on at the VITAL Lab. Any student at OU who has been working on a research project had the opportunity to present their research here. Projects were broken down by subject, and the top projects in each subject were able to win cash prizes. The winner from our EECS group 1 were students who make educational games at the VITAL Lab. The games are made with a game engine that was also created by the students over the past few years. One of my friends studying astrophysics was also able to win a prize for his research. I do not think that I could explain his research well, the general subject matter had to do with black holes at the center of galaxies and the patterns of energy that they give off over time.
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by matts
6. April 2009 19:02
| | Posted by Matt Sargent
Senior, Computer Science
One week is gone from the quarter already and classes are starting to pick up. I am taking a networking and an operating systems class this quarter, and I think that they will be an excellent way to end senior year. They are already two of the most interesting classes that I have had the chance to take. Outside of class, some friends and I are carrying over a tradition to this quarter that we started last quarter. Every Monday a group of us go up to Courtside Pizza for $5.99 large pizzas. We usually hang out for a couple hours in the early evening, eat food, play pool, and watch whatever sports game happens to be on. It's a fun way to get everyone together and to make it easy for everyone to stay in touch. |
by matts
17. March 2009 21:52
| | Posted by Matt Sargent
Senior, Computer Science
It's the middle of finals week, and I'm getting excited for spring break. I just finished up my last project of the quarter, and in a little bit I am going to start studying for my last two finals. To celebrate finals week being almost over, a few friends and I went out to dinner earlier tonight. We are all excited for spring quarter, and we talked about getting some intramural teams together next quarter. I think that everyone would be up for forming a soccer team, but I hope that we can gather enough people for a softball team too. |
by matts
20. February 2009 10:00
| | Posted by Matt Sargent
Senior, Computer Science
I just finished up with my morning class and am about to plan out the work that I have to get done this weekend. Since it is almost the end of the quarter, that means that it is getting to be time for the final projects in all of my classes. I am about to hand in my final design for my database course, which means that I need to start implementing my database soon. I also have to finalize a parser design that can be used to generate automatic test cases for c++ code. My other project that I have to get working on involves implementing a graphical user interface in JAVA.
In about four hours from now I also need to give a demonstration of my latest project at work. I work for the VITAL lab and am currently coding a project that visualizes files for coding projects. This software will eventually be used by teams of programmers in order to let them see in a 3d format which files in a project are being worked on in order to avoid coding conflicts (such as two coders editing the same file at the same time). While all of these projects are challenging, working on the projects has helped me learn more than any class alone has. |
by dane
6. February 2009 19:49
 | Posted by Dan Evans
1st Year Grad Student, Computer Science
Yesterday, all of the Choose Ohio First scholarship recipients set up a visit to a local business called Diagnostic Hybrids. It is located on State Street and I had no idea it even existed until we went on a visit. They produce various kits to test for different diseases and the goal of the visit was to show how the company incorporates bioinformatics tools into the products that they make and to hopefully set up some internships at their company in the future for the scholarship recipients. It was a pretty cool place and they served us lunch as well. Who knew there was such a high tech place in our little town? |
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