it definitely rained all day today. its a good thing i was unaware of the forecast or i might i have been tempted to skip class.

based on the success of my marketing of the phrase 'do you want a cookie' while i was finishing up high school, i've decided to begin a campaign called, fittingly, Do You Want a Cookie?. Simply put, its an incentive based program featuring delayed gratification, because this is how i am motivated personally. It obviously is not a fit for everyone, but i'm a personal fan. the way it works is each week, try to eat pretty good and work out. if you work out 4-5 days that week, then you get 1 cookie that weekend. work out 6-7 days in a week...2 cookies! its beautiful. if you dont feel like working out, simply ask yourself.....Do You Want a Cookie?!?!

i've made a list of words deutsch used in lecture today, as well as taken down some quotes.

list of words/phrases by deutsch in todays 75min lecture. please excuse misspellings.

phenomena, elevation, assumption, withhold excitement, intrinsic, initiative, enclave syndrome, materialize, synthesis, analysis, scope (as a verb), extract information, lets revise that, interpersonal skills are worth upgrading, stimulus, representative scenario, validating, emebriated, encapsulate, optimistic viewpoint, anomaly, saturated sector, off-nominal mode, introspective, simply characterize the system initially, consequential harm, hazy, cartoon, signifcant achievement, que, ascilloscope, stabilization algorithm, upstream brewing process, insert appropriate volume of liquid, porportional

"lets get started, the grace period has expired" (this quote was actually taken down by markum, as i myself had missed the grace period, due to the rain and lack of umbrella and thus needing to utilize the bus system after lunch on main campus with one cool friend)

"ok, i understand more the purpose of your question now"

"distill the narrative overview into operational scenarios"

"drunk workers on the job cuts down on efficiency" (really? you think?)

"yes, see the paper being susoomed by the machine" (he's talking about a fax machine, but i have no idea what that word is)

"if you're a manager you view it as extremely important...it keeps you from being fired"

"if we're defining a system for an oil refinery, we want to speak in Refineryeese."

"well, let me give you a hint. it has skin. uuuusually has hair. so what am i describing??....a human! thats right!" (hahaha very nice. my personal favorite. it was like a little guessing game. a weird little guessing game.)

"we've basically truncated our revenue system" (oops)

"lets think of an ATM. in this case ATM does not mean Texas A&M" (oh. hmm. thats odd)

"in preference, what i advocate..."

"you've just described a stimulus!!!" (yay!)

"lets just play a ring-around-the-rosy game here" (yes, lets do)

"whats the significance of those 2 extremes?"

"what you dont know is actually more important than what you do know" (great.)

"the system shall do the impossible."

"lets terminate this discussion." (translation: class is over)


lets terminate this blog posting. yay for the weekend!!

so this semester seems like its going to alrite. despite what dominos says, i'm still all about fridays, not tuesdays. i enjoy the quiet times with LJ. so far! and i really like mondays and wednesdays. i really thought i might get bored, but so far, i've had more than i could accomplish. tuesdays and thursdays are somewhat of a drag, but knowing i only have to go twice a week, has gotten me to every class so far.

"dont let all these boys scare you off. you'll be just fine"--hanik, the basketball coach. (this will be determined tomorrow, when we actually play basketball.)

"they must be more finite than nebulous" --ammons (an old prof i had in pre-blog days. i have nothing i want to say about him. he observes my 477 class with fowler. charming.)

"well the dog stays in the house with us. she wont necessarily LIVE in this [dog house]. its to be more of a......cabana?" --keith clanahan, guest lecturer in 477, (in response to my question while he was trying to teach us project mgmt by planning to build a dog house for his dog.)

"with the pony express you never had a guarantee your message would get through. the rider might get killed by Indians or fall into a big hole, or he may get cold and light all the mail to keep warm." --norton

"they're not exactly apples and oranges but its sor of an apple/orange juice....mixture." --norton (a smoothie? if you will...)

"i paid 800 dollars for my first cell phone and it had about 4 parts to it. my wife keeps telling me i should throw it away..." --norton

"i'm not really sure whats going on but in preference to burning up, i say we should leave."--deutsch (did the fire alarm go off during this class? why, yes it did. did we all sit there like dumb idiots doing nothing? why, yes we did. did we finally decide to exit the building? why, yes we did. well, actually markum and i just stood in the hallway, near the door, close enough to make a dashing exit should we smell smoke. did several people just leave and not come back? why, yes, of course. did i stay? why, yes, naturally. really? i know, i must have turned over a new leaf.)

"imagine reading a boring textbook....like maybe the one we have for this class....."--deutsch
(i dont have to imagine this....i have plenty of experience)

well thats about all i got folks. hopefully will get some more quotes down tomorrow in classes. hopefully also i'll get more in the groove of updating more regularly, for you, my beloved reader.

i shall close, with a list of things i HEART, by request, in no particular order....
1. i HEART my soon to be new job
2. i HEART J-Jo
3. I HEART oregonians that stinkin rock my face off :-)
4. I HEART the rowing machines at the rec
5. I HEART being a senior again. Whoop! I forgot how good it feels....
6. I HEART cool evenings, driving around with the windows rolled down
7. I HEART fridays with LJ
8. I HEART phone calls from my brother and sister in law (whoa watch out!!) from london and i think its a middle eastern man trying to sell me something "do you have a pen?"
9. I HEART alias and 24
10. I HEART Ezra? Yes, Ezra. Check it.

the much anticipated first blog of 2005. finally. i have received angry threats, letters, IMs, emails, and verbal warnings as to the lack of my updating. i apologize and hope that none of the readership has been offended beyond forgiveness for my neglect.

i have many topics to share about, all of which cannot be addressed in only one entry, but i shall share more of them as time goes on. briefly, my break was good. it included time with family, friends, and a ton of driving. also it included my brothers wedding and a trip to the cotton bowl, where it was rumored the aggies were playing, but we didn't see them there, unfortunately. more on my break in the future.

the beginning of the end. yes, yesterday marked the beginning of my final semester at A&M. so far i have had a blast hanging out with everyone. it is my first and only matt and bree-less semester, which is certain to be odd. i have seen several movies since i returned: the village: excellent film, and not as scary as i thought it would be, but still really interesting, collateral: another excellent film and quite intense, little black book: ridiculously dumb movie that i wish i'd never seen and put me to sleep.

so this semester, i'm very excited about. i have only a web based class and tues/thurs classes. meaning mondays and wednesdays i'm left to my own and fridays i will be 'working' but at a pleasurable task that i'm stoked about. also mon and wed are available for substitute teaching.

a rundown of my classes:

8:15 am : Basketball/Health. I walked into this class, and saw many boys and 1 other girl. when the coach announced the name of the class the girl promptly got up and left, leaving me by my lonesome in some boys P.E. class. seriously i dont know what the deal is, its not football or wrestling, its BASKETBALL, and i really figured there'd be some girls in there. i cant drop it because i need it to graduate, so i guess i will just have to show those boys how to play a little basketball. i then spied mark across the room, and then i was a lot more excited, because maybe he can protect me?? that is, if he's awake enough. coach = hanik.

9:35: Large Scale Information Systems Project. the reuniting of team awesome. the class might be horrible and the teacher nearly unbearable, but any class with team awesome cant be that bad. can it? professor= fowler.

11:10 :Data Communications & Networking. I dont know anyone in here. But i hope to learn a few things, and at least Norton is aware of Josefy. which is always nice.

then i go home for lunch.!

2:20: Management of Information Systems. Markum is my pal in this class, ja? professor= deutsch. the king of big words. this little old man can spit out more big words than my mind has time to process. slightly boring topic, but a wealth of good quotes are sure to abound from this class. the horridness of him actually lecturing for the entire time on the first day was tempered by his 'proffering' up some quotes....

"i've got an unusual phone: all it can do is make calls." --deutsch

"as you can tell from my manner of speaking, i'm not from here." --deutsch

"actually, management really is a dull subject so we're going to have to work pretty hard to keep this interesting." --deutsch

"everyone here is a young adult-except for me. i have somewhat more maturity in that area." --deutsch

and from his syllabus....

"In rare cases of factual contradictions between the text and Instructor's notes, precedence should be given to the Instructor's materials."

"Students should avail themselves of the opportunity to ask questions of these guest experts."

"In cases of pathological mal-performance, a Group may elect to discharge an individual member with the concurrence of the Instructor."