Let me detail my schedule today.

First, I got up. That was around 9 am. I know, I suck, but I've paid my dues. I had 8 am classes for five semesters straight.

Anyway, then I went to class. That was at 10. Then I came back. That was at 11.

Then I did laundry, fixed some references on my Unit Ops report, sent said report to the TA and the writing professor for corrections, ate lunch, prepared my documents for my fellowship for next year, mailed the documents, and headed for the computer lab to work on our design project at 2.

I got back at 10:30.

So that section of 10 to 2 was like my normal life. And then comes Design, which is a full-time job.

We actually worked really well and got a lot done. It's amazing how I have a group where everyone's dedicated, everyone's smart and capable, willing, and speaks English. It's really great. We're actually almost done, which puts us far ahead of other groups who are still doing material balances and drawing process flow diagrams, which we've had done for weeks. I think one of best assets is the ability to make decisions, to assume whether something is important, what we can ignore, what the real focus is, etc.

As the kids in Design spend more and more time together in the computer lab it's interesting to see the camaraderie grow. Someone even posted a limerick on the Question and Answer page of the class website now.

Tomorrow if we get done early enough we're going to go play laser tag.

Unfortunately, even if we miraculously get done "early" the workload won't really be lessened. The design report is due this Monday, but the "Mini Design Project" that the teachers added to the normal workload is due the following Monday, and it's a major part of our grade--in fact, twice the amount the first design report was worth, which we spent probably 60-80 hours working on. Plus I have that Unit Ops lab report, and working on my Unit Ops presentation.

Unit Ops is strange in that it seems to be a combination of the Communications class and the Technical Writing class that other majors require, plus all the labs we actually have to perform. I'm not too worried about the presentations, which may or may not be wise. It's just that in high school I had to do lots of presentations, so I don't get very nervous. I mean, I used to have to give presentations in Spanish which was a foreign language, and I gave a valedictorian speech in front of a couple of thousand of people some of whom were being so disrespectful I had to stop in the middle for some vice principals to take the beachballs away. And I was in cooking club and had to edit our cooking shows. So I know I talk too fast when I'm nervous. I know the odd mannerisms I have, like rubbing my fingers and using my hands to gesticulate too much.

Suddenly remembered again how my senior English teacher told the whole class I was very "self-contained."

I got the fellowship papers on Wednesday, so I'm officially getting next year totally paid for. I'm excited it's all official. It makes my decision to do a Master's totally validated because it's not putting any burden on my parents at all. And it totally helps me out too because it gives me a great internship with a company I'm interested in.

Will in my Design group said that tomorrow he's going to bring in brownies or cookies to distract the other groups with while we waltz out with our report 42 hours before they'll even think about going to bed. It's working out so well.

I'm hoping that now we're not getting over-confident and totally screwed up.

Though our report is already 114 pages long. Chances are everything possible is in there.

That means we've already produced over 200 pages on this project this semester. That's, what, ~35 each? Hm, it's not that impressive when you think about it that way.

Anyway, time for bed.