but i'm left handed

so not a lot has been going around on campus. alright, so maybe a lot has been going on, i've just been too busy to do anything lately. I have a pretty big physics test on monday, so I'm kinda worried about that. LIke i've told you guys before, physics isn't the easiest thing at IIT. I only know of a few dedicated physics majors here at iit. It's tough.

most of the grade relies on the tests, but they're not everything.

10% test 1
20% test 2
20% test 3
20% final
10% labs
10% recitation quizzes
10% homework

That's what basically every physics (and calculus) courses look like. It's not that much different from a high school course, expect that homework is worth less.

But anyways, right now we're studying about Resistors, capacitors, solenoids, and a bunch of other stuff in circuits. we're also doing that magnetism part. I'm sure some of you are taking physics and heard of the "right hand rule". but yeah, we're doing that stuff, and it's crazy hard lol, not really, if you pay attention in class.

Another thing, Prof. Haines is teaching a physics 3 course next semester. and i guess the good word about him spread and upon looking on the course registration website, his class if full. even only after a few days of registration being open. talk about a wildfire. My roommate tried talking to him to get into his class, but apparently there's a waiting list with about 20 students on it. thank goodness i don't have to take it until next fall rolls around.

Oh and I have some more advice for picking classes. there's a website called, "ratemyprofessor.com" and it has student reviews on professors for colleges. READ IT and make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. I only heard it recently. I really hoped i heard about this earlier. it has very important info. some info is definitely biased, but you'll see trends.

"i could have done that"

move!

finally...

no photography allowed inside the museum, but outside is a different story

if you do come to chicago, you should take a carriage ride through the city

i think they're like 20 bucks or something.

this is the line at the american girl place

just another pic

i stuck it to the man and snuck in a pic

people here call it "MCA", back at home, we all call it MOCA. btw, this stands for the museum of contemporary art. but regardless of what acronym you use, you can still recognize it by, i guess, all the art that you quitely say to yourself, "i could have done that".

the museum was celebrating it's 40th year anniversary and had free admission for 40 days this year, while still keeping thursday afternoons free as well.

i like to go every once in a while to update my suare talk. during these 40 free days, anyone could walk in, and tilt their head sideways while trying to understand the paint thrown on the wall. the special exhibition was a dedication to rock and roll, so it obviously included a bunch of andy warhol stuff. there was also an exhibit with records glued to the floor for everyone to walk on.

what was really interesting was that one of the exhibits was a male and female actor gettin' their groove on if you know what i mean. they didn't take their clothes off, so it wasn't that interesting lol jk. but you know, they were doing almost every move in the kama sutra (not that i've ever read it before :P)

it was more interesting to learn that it was family day at the mca where many kids were brought along. one kid was like, "mommy mommy! i like that one!" while he pointed to the couple doing the horizontal tango. i was so ready to just jump in and express "art" as well.

it's too wordy!

haha, so i get to industrial organizational psychology after work, and my good friend angela sits down next to me and says, "well i finally read your blog, and it's sooo wordy!!!" lol, she's the second person to say that. yeah, it's kinda wordy, but that's what a blog is for. rants. right? haha, but don't worry, i'm on it. I'm trying to get a video camera from the office of undergraduate admissions so i can start video blogging. I do have a camera on the top of my macbook, but i would like to film stuff that i do in the city or just everywhere. probably like one of those people who have video cameras all over their house, or maybe fim a few survivorman shows.

But this week has been kinda stressful. I really didn't explain class registration in my previous post. most of the time it can be a pretty easy deal, but sometimes it can be the worst thing in the world. I got most of the classes I wanted such as organic chemistry lab, cell biology, analytical chem, and a few others. The only real problem was that i had to take physical chemistry before I take molecular biophysics in the fall. but in order to take physical chemistry, i had to take analytical chemistry. so right now, i'm trying to get approved so that i can take p chem before a chem. lol, there are some minor problems as well, like which ipro to pick. they all look pretty interesting, but i just want to find something where i don't have to spend too much time. some ipros are really hardcore and some students work really really hard. some ipros don't require much work, but that all depends on what the ipro is and what professor is leading the group. so i'm still looking.

now, some people have it worse. they might still have holds on their account which prevents them from registering. this can either come from the fact that they haven't met with their advisor, haven't paid their tuition, or something. class scheduling is very important, so you got to be very responsible when it comes to things like that.

another f%*#ing monday

haha, i'm just kidding. this monday was ok....not much homework. not much anything...


today was another open house! if you guys haven't been to an IIT open house, you must! not only do you get to meet ambassadors, eat free food, get free shirts and water bottles, you get a personal call from yours truly! it has been my job the past two open houses to call all of the prospective students. i usually call to remind you that there is an open house (probably the friday before) and that registration is between 8:30-9 and all the information you need is on the iit.edu website haha.

but i think i'd like to talk about my biology colloquium tonight.

so with our biology colloquium class, it's not a really a class per se, it's more or less a presentation. we get famous and sometimes world renowned people (and by famous and world renowned, i don't mean vin diesel lol or any other actors of that sort). these are professors with multiple post docs and phds and that sort who come to iit to present their research. today we had a lecture from a professor who teaches at the northwester medical school. the lecture was about the cholera toxin which causes problems such as diarrhea and kidney failure. but they were able to grow the bacteria that causes it in mice. and then that's when i fell asleep. lol. these biology colloquiums are very advanced and technical. sometimes a little too technical if you know what i mean.

the great thing about this class is that it only meets once a week and the class is based on attendance and a summary for each presentation. it's a pretty easy summary, being only "5 sentences" as required by the professor. so show up, pay enough attention and voila!

seriously, wtf mate?!

the real pumpkin launch

so, while i was studying for tests and not keeping you guys up to what events were going on at iit, i did manage to check out some of the pumpking launching-fest activities. started by the biomedical engineering society, people can get up to around 200 dollars to build a pumpking launching device. this year around 6 or 7 teams build pumpkin launchers. I remember when i was a freshman, only like 3 teams competed, so this thing is catching on. the Materials, mechanical and aerospace engineer team came in first, launching their pumkings as far as 98 feet with a trebuchet design. the second place team, a group of architectural and civil engineers, had around 89 feet, and the bme group got 43 feet. it was pretty exciting, there were many different heats, so each team got a good number of chances to make sure their launchers were working properly. as you can see in the first picture, even some television stations came out and interviewed some of the teams and watched the launching. President john anderson came out and made a speech and vandercook even had a choir sing. talk about a big event lol.

interviewing (i think that's the civil/arch engineering team)

haha, kids hanging all over the launcher

what a turnout!

she's gonna blow!

free caramel apples and pumpkin carvings too!

sorry f/ the sideways pictures, i don't have any editing software on my macbook

"pump-kin" iron...get it?!?!?!?

oh, and thanks for rebecca fortier for taking these pictures while i watched from the admission office. she is the events coordinator for the office of undergraduate admission.

da bulls

so on thursday, i was able to go to a bulls game. the union board sold 10 dollar bulls tickets the day before. again, it was another union board thing. but these were 46 dollar tickets for only 10 dollars. they only had 40 tickets, which is pretty bad, but they're offering other games later in the school year. i hd to line up about one and a half hours earlier to be like number 25 out of 40 on the list. it wasn't a bad game either like bulls vs. toronto lol, it was the bulls vs. pistons. i personally, am a pistons fan, but we were seated in a bulls section. here are some pictures and a few videos. the bulls ended up winning. i was surprised that the pistons played so poorly. :(

if the bulls got over 100 points, everyone would get a big mac from mcdonalds. the bulls let us all down.

i forgot what the bulls drum line was called, but they were walking to each section and playing.
sorry, no nick cannon

so many people there.

dave and evan, my escorts

that doesn't look fake at all

"why does jack nicholson go to every basketball game, and not baseball? the cheerleaders"

view from the nosebleed section

i swear, we were higher than everest

loooouuuuullll deeennngggg!

pictures are in reverse order, or are they?

that's chicago's motto. i guess it's better than, "chicago...we got wind"

warmup

the food area

and here are the videos i uploaded as well. i'd like to apologize for the not so great pictures and resolution on the videos, i'm working on trying to get a digital camcorder :P

spring classes!

you can definitely feel the anxiety in the air, because it's that time of the semester when course schedules go up, advising meetings occur and kids get nervous.

many are excited that certain teachers are teaching certain courses, many are angry because necessary classes conflict. looks like for me, i'll be having a tough semester. many of my friends told me that i should take this teacher and that teacher, but i always kept putting them off, now those teachers aren't teaching those classes. boo.

but it's ok, change is good right? at least i'm not graduating next semester and have conflicts with my courses. but again, that shouldn't be a problem. one of my good friends is applying to a Physician's assistant school and is planning to graduate next semester. the only problem standing in her way is that biochemistry II (metabolic biochemistry) conflicts with Organic chemistry. however, her advisor said, "don't worry about that, we'll give you credit". so now she can graduate on time.

kids are asking everyone what classes they're taking next semester and it's kind fun. I was to take an ipro with a few buddies of mine.

I don't know if i told you guys what ipros are. they are short for "interprofessional projects". IIT requires that you take two semesters of ipros. ipros aren't regular classes, they're more of a collaboration. you get teamed up with students of different majors (so if you're a computer science major, expect to have political science, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, applied math, and biology majors working with you). and you have a professor who comes up with a real world idea, and you do it. Some ipro's currently are trying to find new interview techniques for jobs, creating an artificial pancreas, finding novel drug targets, fixing chicago public schools, etc. past achieving ipros have been the creation of the "tube" over the MTCC, creating a wireless network in serbia, finding new steel bonds (and getting patents) and so on and so forth.

it's a pretty sweet deal because you can actually do some real world work and even put it on your resume. "so yeah, i created an artificial pancrease" lol

maybe include your teammate's work too.

or not. :)

the pumpkin launch!

http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Gangster-Girl

http://www.wikihow.com/Sneak-out-While-You%27re-Grounded

and my personal favorite

http://www.wikihow.com/Appreciate-George-W.-Bush

hahahahahahahaahahahaha


this is what i do when i'm bored. but you know me, i'm never bored in class, this is always during my non-class times...

i was going to upload pictures of the pumpkin launch today, but blogger was having problems with the picture uploads.


but you know, sometimes you just can't pay attention in class, or you don't really need to. that's why i always bring my laptop in my bag.

I have also found some pretty sweet games by random or some that people who sit next to me recommend.

http://www.handdrawngames.com/DesktopTD/Game.asp

http://www.miniclip.com/games/sushi-go-round/en/

lol

Marc! where have you been?

don't worry fans, i'm still around. these past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic.

i had a genetics exam last friday and a biochem test yesterday. i really had to study for the genetics exam, because i didn't do so well on the last one. and biochem, well it's just biochem.

so i have nothing really to tell you, except that i was studying last weekend (except for friday night, where i went to a small party my friend was hosting). I would put pictures up, but they're a little too risque for an admission counselors blog. i guess you'll just have to come to iit to see the sweet parties that happen here.

but i was drinking monster energy drinks the entire week of my genetics exam. and then doubled that amount for the weekend to study for my biochem exam yesterday. I did get an A on my genetics test...phew. haha, i told myself that i would be guitar hero 3 if i got an A on the exam. the problem is that they're sold out of guitar hero 3 everywhere!!!! nooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have pictures of stuff i did in between before this post and after the previous post, but i'll blog about them later.

have any of you guys played guitar hero 3? is it sweet?!?!?! lol. im just worried that if i get it, i'll waste more time playing it than studying. i've been wasting more than enough time playing halo 3. but this week is pretty chill. no real big assignments due or tests. so i'll be playing halo 3 or going out.