DEE ESS ELL ARR

  Two posts in one day! Er, yeah.... Another one of my wishes from the past 3 years or so has also been granted!  Yup, finally got my shaky hands on a nice D-SLR.  At first I was going to give myself a little graduation present.  But then my dad offered to help me out with it.  And I was like.... kinda hesitant, so we settled on half.  And then after more discussing with both parents, it turned into a full on graduation present from them!  But then I felt bad, because the camera I picked out was kinda pricey.

  I picked the beastly Canon EOS 7D.  Good video features, pretty good image quality (I had to compromise a bit on this one for the video features - but I'm not pixel-perfect critical on my images anyway), and a fairly rugged body.  Those 720p videos of our Senior Design project were filmed on that baby.  And I also got some very pretty pictures of us completely trashing our apartment.  Yes, we had a little senior design lab in our living room.

  So anyway, I'm not graduating just yet.  I will after the summer.  But I got the camera early because of the Japan trip.  (I keep saying trip, but I really have to remind myself that this is a study abroad program).  But, there will be two weeks after the summer semester is over for me to trek around!  There will definitely be pictures from that.  So, I'll be vacationing in and around Kyoto and Tokyo from the 5th of July through the 17th of July.  If anyone else is gonna be in the area, we could meet up and hang out - wouldn't that be awesome?

  Speaking of vacation time ... I seem to be vacationing at the wrong time.  Everything seems to be happening after I go home.  It's quite sad.  A lot of the big summer festivals are at the beginning of August.  Something I am slightly disappointed about, it seems I went in the wrong year, because the Green Tokyo Gundam Project would've fallen into my vacation schedule... had I gone one year ago.  But to make matters eeeeeeeeven worse!  They're re-erecting this beast in Shizuoka this year. On July 24th.  A week after I go home.  I suppose it's a little out of the way of my vacation plans, but still! I'll have an unlimited rail pass...  And to top it all off, the life-sized model gods are taunting me.  This time, its a life-sized Evangelion unit.  And it opens on the 23rd of July.

  So, if I had stayed about a week longer, these would be a part of my picture collection. But unfortunately, 3 weeks is a long time for vacation.  It would've been better if the summer study program had lasted another week.  *sigh.  Oh well.  There should be some good landscape and scenic pictures though.  Hopefully I can grab some good night pics of Tokyo.

ouch

Before I get around to putting up my next post that was planned, I got an email today - along with all other kids at Georgia Tech - and I'm sure it's not unlike other institutions as well. Here's some choice excerpts from the email (and I promise nothing is being taken out of context).

These additional cuts bring the total reduction for Georgia Tech over the three most recent fiscal years — FY09, ‘10, and ‘11 — to $67.2 million, or 23.8 percent of our FY09 base. In addition, it is important to note that the federal stimulus funds we received to date are not expected to be available in FY12 or the following fiscal years.

In a separate but related action yesterday, the BOR also approved a $500 per semester increase in tuition for both resident and nonresident students at Georgia Tech, excluding those students on the Guaranteed Tuition Plan. For in-state students who qualify, this increase will be covered under the HOPE Scholarship program. This tuition increase will move us closer to the market value as determined by comparison with our peer institutions and will provide some limited flexibility in budgeting for Institute programs.

Seeing that first part just hurts - nearly a quarter reduction... add to that an additional increase in tuition... we've already been tacked with an extra fee on top of tuition (which actually got around the HOPE scholarship thing), but now it's getting officially added to tuition huh? At first they mess with me by adding a fee - not covered by HOPE scholarship. Now that I'm just getting into graduate school, they add to the tuition - of which I no longer have HOPE to cover. !!!

I certainly can't say that I'd have a better solution, but what does irk me just a little is the rationale statement. This tuition increase will move us closer to the market value as determined by comparison with our peer institutions. What's wrong with being cheap AND good? Either say: we're just as good as the other universities, but we cost less! Or... don't say anything at all. I'll accept the second part: [this] will provide some limited flexibility in budgeting for Institute programs. But us students are good at detecting BS. We write it all the time. And worse yet, this one deals with our money.

Anyway, I'm sure many of you are in the same situations with your respective universities, so all this is probably a moot point. Back to getting that original post done.

catsup

Hello hello! I've been quite dead the past semester haven't I? No one's bothered me about posting either, so I was happy to oblige. Really though, a lot has happened, and I often found myself thinking of taking some time to relax and type up randomness on this blog. But alas, the call of coursework is just too strong... So let's play catch up shall we?

The last four months have been spent primarily on my Senior Design Project. Oh yes, that lovely course - the culmination of one's undergraduate career. The course that people 50% love and 75% hate and despise. Yes, that's right, that's over 100%. Hatred causes the laws of math to break down. Mainly it's because they require us to write reports and give presentations. And while, yes, these skills are necessary to some extent, that doesn't mean we can't hate its guts.

But, instead of /ranting, how about some background and fun facts about the project. Well, now that I think about all I have to catch up on, I think I'm going to break it up into separate posts so each has their own heading.