All grades in

Both the MCB lecture and lab courses from last semester finished their grades, both A+.

Final grades coming in

Today I received emails from multiple courses informing me that final grades are out. Both CS classes I took this semester and the organic chemistry lab course are finalized: A+ in all so far for me.

Third semester wrapped up

This morning I took my last final of the semester and departed campus shortly after. I'm now back in the Quad Cities!

One more final

Tonight was the MCB 250 final exam. That just leaves CS 173 tomorrow morning. Interestingly, the format of that exam is just two weekly-quiz-sized examlets put together, so it shouldn't be too intense. Then winter break begins!

Farther walking

I had tons of free time after an early morning exam today, so I decided to go walking again to visit more bus stops. Even though my nearest unvisited stop was only 1.8 miles away (by street distance), the route I planned went a different direction, following one specific route all the way down to the southernmost stop, the Walmart in Savoy. It was a little over a mile to the first new stop and a total of 8 miles to the end. I took the bus back.

Still walking

After taking a final exam this afternoon I decided to go walking to continue my quest to visit all bus stops in the town. My nearest unvisited stop was 1.25 miles west, so I started by getting there. Then I squiggled back and forth in eastern Champaign to pick up a few stops along two close-together streets. I was going to head back after just that region, but going north I ran into a very convenient pack of 10 stops. I'm now over 25% done, having visited 281 stops. Interestingly, the new nearest unvisited stop is virtually the same distance as today's (1.28 miles) but in a very different direction.

Lab ends for the semester

Today I went into the lab for the last time this semester. I spoke with my supervisor about plans for next semester - we have a lot of interesting ideas I might be able to pursue once the current project is wrapped up. I also met with the other researcher I'm working with to show her the progress I made on our computer work.

Final project fair

Tonight was the final project fair for the CS class I'm on staff for. As a course developer, I was assigned to judge projects, specifically the projects that had already passed the first round of judging (in their lab sections). Another judge and I spent a couple hours handling one room while different judges talked with students in different rooms. After that, everyone walked from the CS building to a large auditorium where the professor gave out awards. This concludes CS 125 for the semester.

Instruction ends

Today was the semester's last day of instruction. Lab work will continue for at least a couple days - I did some computer work for that tonight. The CS class I'm on staff for is holding its final project fair tomorrow; as a course developer I'll be a judge there.

Finals begin

Even though instruction is still ongoing, tonight was the written final exam for my organic chemistry lab class. I had done the practice exams fairly successfully, so I was mainly concerned about just one thing: only non-programmable scientific calculators were allowed. I have a programmable scientific calculator and a simple (four-function plus square root) calculator, but some of the calculations done in class used logarithms. So I spent some time before the exam figuring out how to approximate the log function with only the functions available to me. I prepared three different ways that work in the context of the relevant type of problem, but it turned out that there was no such question on the exam. Overall the real final was much easier than the practice worksheets.

Applied for another course staff position

Since it looks like the dual degree plan isn't going to work out, I'll probably have more free time next semester. So I've applied for a position on the staff of a course I'm currently taking. I plan to also stay in my current staff position with the 100-level class. They're different roles - this new position is much more office-hours-focused. I'll hear back around or a bit after the semester ends.

Walking in the cold

This afternoon, after getting some work done, I decided to go walking to continue my quest to visit all bus stops in the town. I went east again, beginning with a one-mile walk to the nearest unvisited stop. I continued southeast into Urbana for a total of 3.6 miles. I happened to be in the neighborhood of a friend's house, so I stopped there and stayed with him for a while. I have now visited a total of 251 stops (22.6% of total done). Now the nearest unvisited stop is 1.25 miles west, so it looks like my next trip will go into Champaign.

Finishing up lab work

Since this semester's instruction will be ending next week (!), I need to finish up the lab projects I had in the queue. I made a decent start on one of the computer analyses today, but haven't done the really tricky part yet. I'm still thinking about my algorithm and data structures for that. The other computer project should be simpler - I need to rearrange an existing database schema a bit then load another data source into it.

Organic lab is mostly over

Today was the last lab session for the organic chemistry lab: the lab practical exam. It was pretty much exactly the same as all previous labs, except that we couldn't ask the TA for help (only for safety concerns) and it used a bunch of different techniques we had used before. Everything went fairly smoothly. Now this class only has the paper final exam remaining.

Semester end approaching

Less than two full weeks remain before the end of the semester and classes are wrapping up. The last organic chemistry lab is this week, so the last weekly quiz is now behind me, the first item to be removed from the "recurring" section of my to-do list. I've also adjusted my list to have a specific deadline for my application to the College of Engineering, which was previously in the "soonish" section.

Further walking

It was a nice day today, so I went walking to continue my quest to visit all bus stops. There is one neighborhood that is moderately far away, served by only one route and only on certain trips. I had tried to visit it before, but the sidewalk curves away from the road and goes on a long detour through a park, so I turned back. Today I was prepared and went all the way. On the way back north, I picked up a few more stops in western Urbana. In total, my walk was a bit over six miles. I've now visited over 20% of all the stops.