Worst Final Exam Ever

At 3:20pm today, I experienced the worst final exam in my entire lifetime. I studied very hard for it, after my ECET 304 final exam yesterday. I spent hours and hours re-doing every single homework assignment, re-organized my entire notebook, and so on. I needed a 30% to keep a B, while I needed a 97% to get an A. Although I badly want the A, I knew the chances were going to be unlikely, since Grant makes his test for ECET 324, so long and hard (although he curves them). Well, I got the test in my hand, and it was 14 pages long. Each page had a few math problems, which used a very, very long equation. There wasn't even enough room on the test to fit the equations. Most all of the problems on the test, were set up very differently, so I have no clue whether I did it right. I tried searching through my crappy textbook and all my notes, to see if I did a similar problem before. I found out that I have not. I basically tried to answer stuff the best I could, although I still left two pages of the final exam blank. I'm wondering if I remembered to answer one of the multiple choice questions, on one page. The only easy question on the test was, "How much is the final worth?".

After that horrible exam, I went straight to the Bookstore, which happens to be very close to Grissom Hall, where I had my final exam. I ended up getting $37 out of that textbook, which isn't bad, since it's easily the worst textbook I ever read in my life. Normally, I like the textbooks I get, but that one was horribly written. Well, now I'm just hoping I can get a B in the course, although I rather have an A. I'm just hoping his curve is around 90%, since I will definitely need it. I'm so glad I dropped out of ECET 424, since I definitely don't want to put up with the ECET324 crap all over again for another semester. At least I'll be having the two top Professors in my major, so I'll be taking fair exams next semester.

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Sadly, no DS today

Yesterday evening, I saw a coupon in the Meijer Super Saturday Ad where I can get 15% off on a general merchandise item, that was $50 or more. Well, I've been waiting for Meijer to run this sale, for I could get a Nintendo DS Mario Kart Bundle. I was so excited last night, that I'd finally get a DS. Before I went to Meijer, I went to the ATM to pick up some extra cash, to buy the DS. I went to Meijer, and sadly, there was no Mario Kart Bundle DS. However, I did see an original DS without a game, and Mario Kart was on sale for $29.99. I considered getting that, because buying the two seperately was still cheaper than the Mario Kart bundle, after the 15% discount, but I decided not to go with it. My reason is that red is my favorite color. There's no other color I'd want for my consoles/handhelds more than red. If I got silver (or whatever that color is called), I guarntee I'd be upset with myself later on. I'll be playing the DS for a while, so I feel its best to get the color I want. I did check another Meijer, and still no luck.:( Although I like Meijer, they have pissed me off lately, since they didn't carry DDR Ultramix 3 and DQVIII, when I was planning to get it during a buy one, get one 60% off sale on all video games. Well, I guess its good I didn't get a DS, since I have finals next week. If I don't see some special by 12/21, I'm going to just by a DS for $150. $150 is not much, but it would be nice to save a little, for I can buy as many DS games as possible.

I did see DDR Mario Mix at Meijer, a few of them, and considered getting them. However, I really need to make sure I have a DS, so I decided I'll pass for now.

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I got the stereo to work

Today was a great day in ECET 304. Brandon (partner) and I came to lab at 2:30pm, which is an hour before we normally arrive at lab. In case you didn’t know, I found a chip (NTE801) where I could input the mono signal into a circuit containing the NTE801 then it would convert the mono signal to a stereo signal. We had a problem yesterday with our stereo circuit, since the sound from the radio was very quiet. We decided to purchase some LM386 audio amplifiers, and build circuits with a gain of 20, for each speaker. Well, my partner and I added the audio amplifiers to each speaker, and it worked. We could clearly hear the music from the radio in both speakers. We asked Prof. Denton to check us off, to see if we get 150 bonus points and the opportunity to write a mini lab report, instead of a basic lab report. I was very nervous at first since he kept picking up one speaker, then putting it down then picking up the other, trying to listen for stereo sound. I was so worried that the NTE801 stereo chip wasn’t working correctly. He kept asking us to change our radio station. Finally, on some Hip Hop station, we all could hear a voice in one speaker, while a different voice was being heard in another speaker, meaning that the stereo worked. I was so happy that the stereo worked (worked extremely well) and I got 150 bonus points out of it. I got a few other bonus points also, so my total bonus was 210 points.

I definitely feel very happy right now. The only downside of my day was walking outside in blizzard conditions. I live 15 minutes away, so that was horrible.

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I hate lab practicals so much

I'm so angry at myself right now, that I'm about to shoot myself again. This morning, I had a CPT175 (Visual Basic.NET) lab practical and I actually had problems. Not because I didn't know anything (I actually love VB), but I made really, really stupid mistakes. The first mistake I made was that I couldn't figure out why my enter button wasn't working. I found out 45 minutes later that I completely forgot to say "Return True" in the data validation, so that's why it was storing the inputs into a dynamic array. Next stupid thing I did was that my average wasn't calculating correctly. I was wondering why I kept display the last price I stored into the array. It was because I used gIndex within the array, when I was suppose to use k, since k was being incremented in the For Loop while gIndex was the final index. After I fixed that, I only had 15 minutes left, so I quickly wrote the code for the writing to a file, once I close the form. I copied all the code I wrote down, from my cheat sheet we were allowed; however, I got an error and couldn't understand why since the code worked. I kept trying test different things to see if I can remember something. I ended up having to submit the practical, running out of time, so I lost a few points. When I got back to my apartment, I checked out the code I copied from (which was the last lab assignment), and I found out that I put a "." when I was suppose to put an "=". For some reason, I copied that down wrong. I'm definitely pissed off at myself for doing that. So, I guess I'll be spending more days in my apartment, not going anywhere, being depressed because I probably lost a few points on a lab practical. Everything else in my code, did work, although I might have forgotten to display a message box when I didn't enter anything, when the display button is clicked.

Well, we'll see if I can downgrade my report in ECET 304 to a basic or a mini. If it doesn't happen, you'll definitely see another blog entry about me threatening to shoot myself again.

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Monday was an improvement

Well, Monday turned out to be a much better day. It started off when I went to an open lab in ECET304. My partner and I did get our FM radio to work really good, so we finished the lab. Now, we can work on bonus this week, such as converting a mono sound to stereo sound, using an NTE801 IC. Speaking of that chip, I talked to my lab partner and he'll be picking the chip up for me, at UPS, since I have no transportation to get it. I have all the parts I need, except for one more 220nF capacitor. As for the test I complained about over and over again in my last entry, on how I couldn't find my notecard. I ended up getting an 85% on that test. Yeah, that's still a horrible grade, but at least I didn't fail. I still feel a little depressed about it, but not as much as before.

As of right now, I shouldn't be writig this blog because I have a few things to do, in a short time. I have to finish my ECET304 homework, where I have to find two RF wireless modules and compare them. I already found one, just need to find another. I will probably start writing, in around an hour. It's due tomarrow at 3:30pm. I also have a lab practical for CPT175 at 7:30am tomarrow. I just wrote one page of notes (hopefully I don't lose it), to help me out. I got a 120/120 on the last lab practical, so hopefully I can do the same again. I also have to build the stereo circuit for ECET304, but I'll probably do it tomarrow after my lab practical, since I need to have it built by 11am.

Well, I'm plannining to mostly play my shorter games this week and next, such as Soul Calibur III, We Love Katamari, etc., so no RPG games until finals week is over. I'm going to have way too many games to play over Winter Break, since I have bought Dragon Quest VIII (It was bought for me, but it's at home), Magna Carta: Tears of Blood, Suikoden Tactics, Wild Arms: Alter Code F, Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, Shining Force Neo, Romancig SaGa, Radiata Stories, SMT: Digital Devil Saga 2, etc.

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