Jim Roepcke's weblog have browser, will travel (est. 1999)

13Aug/07Off

Looking forward to 4th year, hockey, and a better week than last

Last week was rough. Starting Tuesday night I couldn't sleep until around 3am each night. Friday night I had played hockey and was so tired, I had nothing left in the tank.

There's been a lot going on in my life, and I think the weight of it all was just starting to pile up. Thankfully, by the end of the weekend I started to feel better, and even though I worked on and off throughout the weekend, I felt rested by Sunday evening. Hockey on Sunday night was great, I tried the Malik move on a breakaway (unsuccessfully), and had plenty of fun and boosted the endorphin meter at the same time.

Today I got good news on a couple of fronts, one being Cheryl's job, the other being hockey-related...

I've been accepted onto a recreational team for this season in the Island Hockey 101 league. When I started playing hockey in February, this was my goal... improve to the point where I could play in that league in September. I think I have, and am looking forward to it so much!

Unfortunately my hockey pants got ruined in the washing machine today, they got caught in something and were totally trashed. Tomorrow morning I'll go buy some new pants, and get my textbooks for this fall.

Speaking of this fall, this upcoming term is going to be fan-freaking-tastic. I'm taking 3 courses I've been looking forward to forever:

UVic Course: CSC 305 Introduction to Computer Graphics

"Introduction to computer graphics. Principles of raster image generation. Example of a graphics API. Graphics primitives, data structures. Coordinate systems, affine transformations and viewing of graphical objects. Introduction to rendering including shading models and ray tracing. Introduction to modeling including polygon meshes, subdivision, and parametric curves and surfaces, colour."

UVic Course: CSC 435 Compiler Construction

"Compilation, including: lexical analysis, syntax analysis, semantic analysis, code optimization, and simple code generation. Students will implement a compiler for a simple language."

UVic Course: CSC 450 Computer Communications and Networks

"An introduction to concepts in computer communications and networks. Topics will include layered network architectures, packet switching networks, local area networks, protocol design and verification, network security, and applications in distributed computing."

In the Spring I'm taking these 3 courses, and one more TBD:

UVic Course: CSC 462 Distributed Computing

"Review of computer networking. Mechanisms including interprocess communication and remote procedure cell. Distributed operating systems design problems: kernels and microkernels, process models, virtual memory, naming and protecting. Distributed file systems. Fundamental problems in distributed computing: naming, ordering of events, replication and atomicity. Case studies."

UVic Course: CSC 464 Concurrency

"Introduction to the foundations of concurrency theory and the issues of specification and verification of concurrent systems. Topics will include models of concurrency such as Petri nets, labelled transition systems, and traces; specification of concurrent systems/programs in formalisms including process algebras, statecharts, Petri nets and temporal logics; verification techniques such as bisimulation and model checking. Case studies will be taken from coordination problems, controller design, communication protocols, hardware and user interface design."

UVic Course: ENGR 240 Technical Writing

"This course will focus on searching and referencing methods used in dealing with scientific and technical literature and on the characteristics of effective technical and scientific style. The emphasis throughout will be on clarity, precision, and consistency. Students will acquire practical experience in the writing of short technical documents such as memoranda, letters and abstracts, longer forms such as reports, papers, and theses, and instructional forms such as manuals, brochures, and specifications."

I've been putting off ENGR 240 for many years, but I'll have to take it in the Spring or no graduation for me! :-)

Here are some courses I'm considering for my 4th and final Spring course...

CSC 483A: Topics in Programming Methodology: "Software Configuration Management" (no link yet)

UVic Course: SENG 310 Human Computer Interaction

UVic Course: CSC 461 Multimedia Systems

UVic Course: CSC 445 Operations Research: Linear Programming

It's been suggested I take an "easy course" rather than another senior CS/SENG course, since I'm already taking 5 senior CS courses this year and I only need to take a couple, but I haven't found anything easy AND interesting yet.

Suggestions?

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  1. Justin
    August 14th, 2007 - 22:47

    My take:

    CSC 305: I really enjoyed this class (405 at the time) but I spent so many hours in the lab. :(

    CSC 450: Good class but dry.

    CSC 435: At the time, no interest and it looked really difficult. Now, I would find it interesting.

    CSC 462: I really wish I took this course!

    CSC 464: This looks interesting too!

    ENGR 240: Have you been putting this course off because it’s dry and boring? Well, it is!!! :) But with this workload, it may be a godsend to have this as a bit of a reprieve.

    CSC 483A: Oooh, this looks interesting…

    SENG 310: I considered going back for this one class at one time.

    CSC 461: Fun!

    CSC 445: *shrug*

    Yeah, 4th year courses is where it’s at! Fun and interesting courses!

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