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[Mindmaker]

So I managed to reduce my nutritional intake by a respectable amount.
Not as easy as it sound, when you get raised with the "eat up"-mentality and you feel guilty if there are any leftovers.
Not to mention the little treats, to keep myself happy.
Maybe I'll finally be able to regulate my weight, as well as the constant stomach upsets and indigestibility.
Should see my doctor about the latter ones anyway.

Anyway, tomorrow is my big day. Doing some tests and a psychological evaluation. Maybe I'll be finally able to decide, what my major shall be.

[alway]

Looks like the first attempt at taking the Google Lunar X Prize may occur some time next year. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-02/private-company-seeking-x-prize-first-book-trip-moon

[Aklyon]

How many X Prizes have there been now?

[alway]

http://www.xprize.org/prize-development
The way I understand it, X Prize foundation has all sorts of them. Essentially a company/rich person comes up with a challenge and helps sponsor it. Not entirely sure to what extent the sponsors do it or what extent the X Prize Foundation is responsible.

There appear to be 3 currently active prizes, the Google Lunar, Archon Genomics and Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup. About a dozen in development, and even more being considered.

Naturally though, due to their high profile nature, the space ones are the ones most people think of when they hear 'X Prize.'

[Leafsnail]

My first real wire thingy! A little turret that pews you when you walk in front of it, with an on and off switch. Super simple really but I'm proud of myself for actually making the damn thing work at all.

I'm still looking at tutorials for rotating ones and trying to work out the basic principles.  I might have my own design working by 2013.

[Darvi]

Me, playing TWEWY: Ooh, a pirate hat! I'll give it Joshua!
My Brother: What, pirate Jesus? What's next, ninja Judas?

The ensuing laughter gave me cramps.

[Aqizzar]

I just got to read Duke's and Vector's soliloquies about the daily journey of misery that is being ahead of the course in college.  The tragic irony of having the ability to give a damn and pay attention to the material, apparently far in advance of your contemporaries, without having the valedictorian's drive to test out of everything and rocket straight into the super-duper-honors program and never see those rubes again.  I am not happy that you too are having the anger and apprehension that you are.  I'm just happy to have some company, I guess.

"Positive-Feedback Loop" is definitely the way to describe my experience.  I'm sitting in the back of the room, or the front in those classes where I can get away with asking questions every day, genuinely astounded that there's people not getting this shit.  And somehow, I'm toward the bottom of grades, of those people who actually show up, because the anxiety over getting good grades and proving that I'm actually as intelligent as I believe I am overcomes my own last reserves of willpower, fretting to the last minute before blowing the whole thing off for the certainty of a solid C average, just by showing up.  I don't know if I ever actually cured it.  Maybe I just stopped giving a fuck, and realized I'd have to pull my shit together if I was going to graduate within the decade without bleeding myself dry.

If all the whinging I've done over the past couple years makes any more sense now, I welcome to my world and pity you for it.  I hope my example can serve as a guide of what to overcome and why you should, because the only ways out are up and over, or crashing through the floor.  I guess I accomplished something by graduating at all, and if I do have something to be happy for, it's that once you can hold that sheepskin in your hand, all the anxiety and pressures of the process vanish in a puff of smoke.  Once you've got it, no one can take it away, and everything that you did or didn't do to deserve it doesn't matter anymore.  Maybe that's something to look forward to, but I know it didn't mean much to me at the time, because it's a long road ahead.

And for anyone who thinks my ranting about being smarter than the rest of the class without the accomplishments to prove it sounds elitist, well, you're God damned right it is.  That cold vindication and increasingly bitter sense of superiority is all we have to hold on to.


In totally unrelated events, I went out and bought a $100 pair of boots today, before donating $30 to some kid's school charity.  I like being able to do that with no more than an eye-flare.

[ToonyMan]

I get really bored in class so I usually play songs in my head and make jokes.

[Aqizzar]

I get really bored in class so I usually play songs in my head and make jokes.

I sketched bullshit in my notebook, and pondered the deeper implications of Homestuck plot twists.  Or read through the textbook in my head with funny accents.

[ToonyMan]

Right, I draw some stuff too.  If I had a scanner thing I would show some if I could find them.

[lordnincompoop]

I often draw, write or play out ideas in my head.

As for Aqizzar, Vector and Duke's plight, I really feel for you, I do. But I can't manage more than a useless "my sympathies" because I haven't really experienced anything like that, at least not of that magnitude. I realise this probably isn't what you're looking for but there it is.

Why is this in the Happy thread.

[Vector]

I am in the super-duper honors program.  Not as much as I will soon be due to Not Having My Shit In Gear for the first year.5 of college, but honestly... this is pretty much it.  I'd have to be attending Harvard for nothing but mathematics--or taking nothing but math courses--to be in a higher lane, and I don't do that because I actually care to have knowledge in other fields.  And ace them, too.

I don't ask questions in class anymore, most of the time, because there aren't questions I can ask that either a. I wouldn't be able to answer on my own with a little effort or b. the professor will be capable of answering.


Most of the time when I'm bored in class, I try to figure out what the next logical development or application will be before the professor can get to it.  Either that, or I look for how to break the theory.  Then I keep on going that way.


Or, rather, the next step of "super-duper honors lane" is "getting your PHD at 21."  Again, I'm working at rubbing up other areas so that I'll be able to publish papers in those places, too.

Rawr >:I

[Darvi]

<stuff>

That's pretty much how I would describe my experiences at school. Except with less words and a lot less sophisticated.
Also I'm pretty  much useless when it comes to learning stuff by heart, but otherwise, my sympathies.

Most of the time when I'm bored in class, I try to figure out what the next logical development or application will be before the professor can get to it.

Huh, I do that kind of stuff entirely by accident. And then when I understand it, I'll intsantly forget everything once the teacher gets to the subject -_-

[lordnincompoop]

Vector, perhaps you should begin writing your dissertation now then.

<stuff>

That's pretty much how I would describe my experiences at school. Except with less words and a lot less sophisticated.
Also I'm pretty  much useless when it comes to learning stuff by heart, but otherwise, my sympathies.

If you're intelligent enough that your classes are a waste of time, you have nothing to fear from tests, no?

[alway]

Tests, no. Arbitrary homework assignments which are mere busywork graded purely by the format, yes. It's why I failed Life Skills in middle school.