An End To The Great Exodus

First off, I would like to apologize to anyone who has made a habit of reading this blog. I know I’ve neglected it for a while now. Ok, more like a month and a half. Hopefully my absence will be thoroughly explained.

Well, as anyone in college or a relative of someone in college will know, semester final are wrapping up and everyone is on there way home for the winter break. I’ve been home for a few days now. The time between the end of thanksgiving week and the end of finals is possibly the busiest time for any college. Classes need to be wrapped up, finals need to be studied for, taken, and graded.  Things need to be packed to get ready to go home for a month. On top of all of that, you need to enjoy the last few days with friends before you leave.  As you can probably understand, my blog was kind of low on the list of things I needed to get done.

However now that I have the time to sit down and write, I do have a couple of interesting stories to tell.

The first story isn’t much of a story really.  Me and one of my roommates are in the same chemistry class. We both wanted to do really well on the final. We decided to go and study in an IHOP for as long as we could manage on the evening of the last day of classes.  That ended up being around five hours. In that time I consumed three pots of coffee. My roommate drank four. For those of you saying, “Josh, wouldn’t staying up all night hurt your grade?”, the day between the last day of classes and the first day of exams is a free day to study or recover from hangovers or whatever. I spent most of it studying for my Calculus exam that was on the same day as the chemistry. Both of which were on the first day of exams. And if you were wondering, we both got a C on the exam.

The second story is also not much of a story. My appologies for my lousy stroy telling. To celebrate being done with our first semester of college, we decided to go see a local tradition. This guy who calls him self Piano Man plays every Tuesday in a local bar. He takes requests but usually plays songs that are good to sing as a group. We went and saw him and had a generally good time. You can see a video of him I took here below.

Well, that’s really it for now. Hope everyone has a festive holiday season and if I don’t write again soon have a happy New Year.

Halloween Weekend

I know this blog has basically deteriorated into me whining about how hard my course load is. I promise that this post will have nothing like that.  Now, before reading on I have two warnings. One is that this blog will definitely be the longest one to date. Second, some of the events described could be conceived as morally objectionable. I’ll keep everything PG rated but I felt a warning might be appropriate. That being said, the stated purpose of this blog is to describe my experience here at UIUC and I’ll definitely remember this one for a while.

Ok first a little background is needed.  The Illini, the sports team here at UIUC, had  game against the University of Michigan on Halloween. It was expected that we would loose because up until that point we had only won one game. Well, to everyone’s surprise we won. That got everyone on campus excited and that coupled with Halloween lead to our adventure that night.

Me and my roommate had already decided we would hang out with several of his female friends to make sure they stayed relatively safe. Plus, we didn’t feel like staying in on Halloween night, win or lose. So we went to meet up with them.

Turns out that my roommate’s friend had a couple friends who were seniors in high school visiting. They wanted to have the college experience for Halloween.

Anyway, we managed to find somewhere to go for the evening after several phone calls. We headed to this one fraternity thinking everything was good. Turns out the girl/guy in our group was too low for them. A little fast talking eventually got everyone in.

So everyone is in the party having a good time, including me. The girls and most of the guys had decided to partake of the drink of choice at college parties.  Me and my roommate both chose not to.  We aren’t really into that kind of stuff. My roommate was dressed up as a Yeti and I was a hippy in a sweatshirt.

Well, several hours later me, my roommate, his friend, and the two high school friends left to go help someone who had gotten loss during the evening. My roommate’s friend spent a little while with the lost person, who had gotten a little scared and stuff. Anyway, at this point the two high school kids were , well, “having fun”. One of them was having a little fun but the other was having way too much fun if you get my drift. At this point I was struggling to not laugh. We made a pit stop so that the less-fun one could experience the down side of consuming too much of her drink of choice.

At this point it’s one o’clock in the morning and everyone expect the more-fun high school friend want to go to bed. The less-fun one was back to normal and wanted to go to bed too but her friend was ready to head back out and party some more. My roommate’s friend started making some phone calls.

One thing that added to the evening was the fact that the more-fun high school friend had recently broken up with her boyfriend after two years. She was the one who ended it and wanted to move. After having several drinks of her choice she wanted to move on full steam ahead, if you get my drift. She was essentially trying to make out with every cute guy that walked by, excluding myself and my roommate.

After several minutes my roommate’s friend gave up. We headed to a friend’s room in a last ditch effort, but to no avail. All the parties had wound down. At this point me and my roommate headed back to our room and the three girls headed to theirs. About 30 seconds after getting back I fell into my bed, which is no mean feat since it’s a top bunk, and slept for about 11 hours.

That was my Halloween night. Hope everyone had a good and safe night. If the post is a little hard to follow, I’m sorry.  I wanted to avoid using names and, well, I couldn’t remember many names anyway. That’s about it until next time.

Grinding Gears

Hello there everyone. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I’ve been really busy but also I haven’t really had anything interesting to write about. Right now I’m taking a break from homework due to my cold. I’ve been feeling pretty cruddy for the last few days. Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow because I have an exam in Electrical Engineering at 8:3o p.m. In addition to that I need to work on a paper too. You see how I have been busy. Problem is I’m just too tired right now to do anything productive.

Anyway, no more complaining. It is definitely Autumn here in Illinois. Me and my roommate and his two friends went to a orchid on Saturday. I got myself a gallon of fresh made Apple Cider. I doubt it will last more than two weeks. It’s pretty cold here but no snow. I can promise that the first snow will have it’s own post here.

Well, other than my cold and the little trip we took nothing really exciting has happened. I just decided to write a post before i went and crawled into bed until dinner. Until next time then.

No Rest For The Wicked

Wow, has it been a busy couple weeks. It seemed like it was just one exam after another for a couple of weeks. By the time I got done with one I had to start studying for another. Some went well, others not so well. But I’m not complaining though. I knew I would have to work a little harder then I did in high school. Not that I actually worked in high school. I just didn't think it would be such a sudden transition. Oh well, I’m keeping my head up above water for now.

Anyway, enough of my complaining. Thinks are picking up around here. Tomorrow starts homecoming week.  At least I think I’m pretty sure it dose. Anyway, next Saturday is the homecoming game.  There are supposed to be floats and stuff. I’ll make sure to get some pictures and put them up somewhere.

I haven’t really had time to do anything besides homework and studying these last few weeks so there isn’t much to write about. One thing I have noticed is that I’ve been getting into my music. My iPod is getting a workout every day. Plus, my clarinet is seeing the light of day again. I’m even considering getting an Electric Cello. I’ll keep you guys posted on that one if it ends up panning out.

Oh, on bit of book keeping. Apparently my hosing account was suspended due to me not logging in for a few weeks. Sorry if anyone tried to get to the site. It should be up and running  no though. I haven’t updated it so if you have seen version 1.0.01 or 1.0.02 then your up to date. I have gotten little bit of work done on the next version though. I’m not going to say too much about that though. You’ll hear when the next version is finalized.

That’s about it for now. Until next time I’m out of here.

Weekends Are When the Week Really Begins

Ok, I FINALLY have time to sit down and write a post. It has been a very long, very stressful, and very tiring week for me this week. My first exam was today in Calculus. On top of studying for that I had to study for a quiz in Chemistry, do the chemistry homework, and everything else that seems to pop up during the week. The more time I spend here the more it becomes apparent that weekend are the only time I can actually catch up on work and my various leisure activities.

Luckily I have found a place on campus that I con go when I need to work. The Granger Engineering Library is in the middle of all my classes. It’s pretty quite so I can concentrate on my work. Plus, If someone is being annoying the place is HUGE so I can just go somewhere else. During the week it’s open 24 hours. It opens at 1o:00 am on Monday and closes at 1o:00 pm on Friday. It’s open 10:00 am to 10:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday so I can go there on the weekends too. I have a feeling with all the stuff that is coming up I will be spending a lot of time in there.

Well, that’s about it for now. The poll closes tomorrow at 11:59 pm so if you haven’t voted yet go do it now. The site address is listed on the left hand side of my profile page on Facebook. Until next time.

I-L-L!! I-N-I!!

For those of you who don’t know that is the chant for the Illinois sports teams. There called the Fighting Illini. I figured that title fit since Saturday was our first home game of the football season. I am glad to report that we won by a healthy margin. Since we won I’ll be wearing my orange overalls to class on Monday. I promise to post pictures.  As I expected their was much partying going on in town and around campus after the game. I don’t event want to think about what kind of hangover my neighbors across the hall have right now. I could be a jerk and go wake them up but I won’t because I’m a nice human being. Plus, they gave us a big box of skittles.

Well, things are starting to fall into their own routine up here in Illinois. I’ve got my first exam coming up this week. It’s my Calculus II class. I can say that I am at least slightly prepared. Next week is my Chemistry exam. I can say I’m not at all ready for that one.  Their is enough homework to keep any free time at bay but I manage to make some room. I can say that I am using my Calendar software to the fullest.  After I post this I’m going to go get some lunch then start to chisel away at this mountain of homework I am literally staring at. In case you were wondering, the food isn’t half bad. It isn’t five star but not too bad.

Well that’s it for now. Next post will come when I get an idea and the time to sit down and write it. Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll on the blog. It still has a week left so keep voting. Oh, and while you are online go check out my new website. It’s my new pet project. Links to everything will be below. Until next time.

Blog: http://www.colleeg lifeuiuc.blogspot.com

Website: http://www.cyberspace.exofire.net

Writer's Block

Hello again everyone. I’m writing this quick post to ask everyone for their help. As you may have seen already I like to be able to update the blog fairly regularly. While this has been easy so far new ideas have been coming to me less frequently. That’s why I’ve added a new poll to the blog. I want your guy’s help with new topics. Just vote for the stuff you want me to write about. Have an idea that isn’t listed? Just let me know and I’ll add it to the poll. If you have any other ideas to make the blog interesting just let me know and I’ll see about adding them. For those of you who still haven’t actually visited the blog yet the address is http://www.collegelifeuiuc.blogspot.com/. Have a look around and let me know what you guys think. That’s it for now.

One Week Down…

Well, I FINALLY have enough time to sit down and write here. I’ve been a College student for a week now and, well, it is different. My first class was a lecture in Calculus II. This is for people who have experience in Calculus. I got a 4 on the Calculus AP Exam. I think I’ve learned more in one week than I learned all last year.  No offense Mrs. Herr.  After that is my Geology lecture. I was going to take a music class but It wouldn't fit when I changed for Calculus I to Calculus II. I needed the general education credit so I figured, why not.  The professor is cool and it’s interesting to me.  After that is my Chemistry lecture.  Nothing I can really say about that.

After that is my Electrical and Computer Engineering lecture. I love that class. I know that sounds REALLY nerdy but it’s true. I mean, that class is why I’m here in the first place. The professor is cool. Now that I think about it, everyone I’ve met has been really cool. I figure this means I’m going to have a good year this year. Let’s hope this is true.

Last but not least, well, ya I guess it is the least. I have a class called Engineering 100. This is taught by a senior who has our major who basically introduces us to college life. The guy is a pretty average college student.  Everyone in the class all have the same major, or in my case, either Electrical or Computer Engineering. 

Most of these classes have a “Discussion” or quiz section with the lecture sprinkled in during the week. Half of them have already started and the others start in the next few weeks. This upcoming Tuesday is the start of my ECE discussion. At 8:00 am, it’s the only class that starts before noon. That is not going to be fun.

I can honestly say that I am under a moderate load of stress with all of these classes. Nothing too bad yet. I’ll let you guys know when I start staying up late at night just to do homework. That is when I truly start classes.

Well, what weird stuff have I seen? Well, for one, I’ve seen “ROTC Discriminates Against Gays.” written in chalk on the sidewalks all over campus.I’ve also seen stuff about the Chancellor in chalk too. I’m not too sure why. If I figure why I’ll let you guys know. I also saw a mini-rally on campus for equality for gays. Someone wanted to fill a bus with people to go to Washington for a march or something. I didn’t really pay too much attention to it.

Another thing I’ve seen was just the other night. We got our first big thunderstorm last night. I’m laying in bed trying to get to sleep when I start to hear people outside yelling. Then more people start going outside. Apparently it’s a big hall tradition to go mud sliding out in the courtyard during every big rain and the first one is always the biggest one.  For those who are wondering, no I did not go.

Well, that’s it for now. I know these things always start a thread on facebook, but don’t forget to visit the actual blog. I’ve got it pretty customized and want some feed back on it. Let me know what you guys think about it. I don’t have my next post planned out yet so I guess I’ll see you guys next time.

Quad Day

Ok, I know I posted  just yesterday but I can’t believe what I saw today. Today was “Quad Day” on campus. This is where all the student organizations set up a booth on the Main Quad and try to get people to join. Well, I just spent about three hours walking around and taking all of them in. There were a TON of them and they represented practically every activity under the sun. I’m going to list the ones I can remember here just so you guys can see what I’m talking about.

• Practically every sorority and fraternity.
• Every major student resource on campus. (Housing, Library, Law Services, Financial Aid, Campus Police, etc.)
• Every major ethnicity.
• Tons of countries.
• Skydiving
• role-playing
• Magic: The Gathering
• LARPing
• Grilling
• Anti-war
• Anti-War on Drugs
• Every conceivable political party.
• Tai-Kwan-Do
• Tons of performance groups. (Drama, Dancing, Singing, etc.)
• The city bus system.

Well, that’s all the ones I can think of now. If I a can think of any more I’ll add them to the list. Well, I start classes tomorrow so I guess I should go and figure out which bus to catch to get to them.

 

09/05/09

P.S.- One group I found the other day was the local chapter of the IEEE. If you don’t know who they are this article will give a good idea of the national organization's background.  The local group  holds workshops and dose social stuff as well. I’ve added their Google Calendar to the bottom of the main page if your interested on what they have planned. I’ll let you guys know more about them as I become more involved.

The second reason I added a P.S. to this post was to test how my “system” would handle amending a post. I haven’t tried it yet and I wanted to see how the various parts would handle it.

Settling In

Well, do I have a long post for you guys.  This one might even max out the length of a note in facebook so I don’t know how importing it will work. You guys may have to actually visit the blog. Before I get back on topic, how many people actually visit the blog and how many people just read it on facebook.  Let me know so I can do a few updates.

Anyway, back on topic. We managed to get to Illinois no problem. Move in day went very well. We only had 20 min but there were people helping with carts so that made it go quicker. One of my roommates moved in a day early. He’s in NROTC and enjoys music. He is majoring in Aerospace Engineering so we both have that in common. My other roommate….well, we don’t see him very much. They’re both nice and we all get along .

My floor is cool too. As soon as I say I’m from South Carolina they all assume I'm in engineering. I guess that dose make sense. They all know me, but i don’t many of their name. I seem to be able to get along like that though so we’ll see where that goes.

I’ve been going to all the opening week stuff but I’m staying i tonight. I was biking all day so I’m kind of tired. The speech today at Convocation was…well, it was awesome. I thought I was watching it on YouTube but then I realized I was actually there. That was probably the most emotional I've been in four years. Just being here means more then the world to me.

I had to drastically change my schedule in order to get everything I wanted. I had to go into a higher Math class because I actually got a better grade on the AP Calculus exam then I thought. I did worse then expected in English and German. I did good in Physics but not high enough to get any credit. I had to drop my Music class. I replaced it with a Geology.  It gave me some General Education credits and sounded interesting.

Well, classes start on Monday. We’ll see if that emotion still holds true. Until then I have the block party at the Activities and Recreation Center across the street. Oh, something really cool and ironic. There is a pool  in the A.R.C. I had a pool at home that I had to constantly maintain. Now I can enjoy one without the work. Sunday is the main event Quad Day is when all the student organizations set up shop on the main quad for everyone to see.  

 

Well, that’s it for now. My next post will probably be next weekend. Hope everyone who’ s already been to class is having fun.  Until next time.

-Josh

Packing

Well, it’s almost time for me to move up to Illinois and I haven’t posted in a while so I figured I’d give another post. Most everyone I know has moved in to there dorms now. Everyone who stayed local have an advantage to me. If they leave something they can drop by and get it. That’s not an option with me being 11 hours from home.

Anyway, back on topic. I’m petty much finished packing. I’m bringing most of my unread books. Not really sure why considering I’m less than a mile from a huge library. Bringing My clarinet and and all the music I have for it. I’m hoping to get it “serviced” somewhere up there. Other then little stuff that’s about it.

Oh, I’m bringing my bike too. The campus actually has two way bike lanes that are separate from the main road. I’m leaving the truck in Kai’s capable hands. I’ll be happy if it makes it to Christmas.

Well, that’s about it. If you guys can think of anything I’m for getting please let me know. Tuesday is my last day at home until December. My next post will probably be from my dorm. Until next time.

Australian Vacation

Hi everyone. Just writing a quick note to let you guys know what I'm up to. I'm about half way through my visit. I've been visiting family and seeing the sights. I've got plenty of photos to upload when I get back. Videos too. I've been freaking out over Illinois as well. I've only got three weeks between when I get back and move in day. Until then I just have to relax.


--This mobile blog brought to you by BlogPress and my iPod Touch.

Registration

Well, I finally made it back from registration. Those of you who follow me on facebook know this already know this by the pictures I’ve been posting.

My schedule is about as good as I could have hoped for with a few little problems. The only one really is that I have a class at 8:00 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. One of them is Math, the other is my Electrical Engineering Introduction course. Two of my hardest courses. Go figure.

One thing I’m happy with is my elective this semester. It’s a course on Music and technology. It sounded interesting and I needed one more course so I figured I’d take it. I’ll keep everyone posted on that one.

This is going to be the last school related post until after I move in on August 20th. If I get the chance I’ll post here on how my trip to Australia is going. If you don’t know I’m going to Australia for 5 weeks. Well, that’s about it for now. Until next time.

 

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Introduction

I suppose an introduction is in order. Like my info says, my name is Joshua Hull. I was born in Honolulu but my family moved to San Diego when I was three so I don’t remember a whole lot. When I was 14 we moved again, this time to South Carolina. I graduated from high school as an honors graduate in a class of about 200.

During my junior year I applied to four colleges and got accepted to three. University of Illinois, Virginia Tech., and Clemson University all offered me admission. Georgia Tech. offered me the wait list. As you may guess by the title of the blog I chose U of I. If your wondering why, check out this link: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/spec-doct-electrical

Not quite MIT but as close as I’ll ever get.

The point of this blog is to give anyone who cares to read it the chance to follow me through these four long years. Actually, if everything goes to plan I’ll spend eight. I hope to get my doctorate in Electrical Engineering from U of I as well.

I’ll be posting here from time to time describing pretty much anything. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly seems to be appropriate. If it happens, you’ll hear about it from me. Plus, I’ll post pictures and video. Nothing too bad though. I’ll leave those for my YouTube account.

Well, that’s about it for now. Registration is in a week so this will probably be it until then.

Foellinger Auditorium

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign homepage: http://illinois.edu/