Yesterday was my first day of classes at UVic. I had trouble falling asleep on Monday night, but eventually did and was fresh in the morning. :-) My first class was Calculus. To my surprise, the person in front of me turned on his laptop and started surfing the web! Oooh, Wi-Fi! Dangerous. ;-)

The Fraser building wasn't one I thought was ready for Wi-Fi, but it definitely is. Class went well. One of my brother-in-law's friends is in the class. It's kind of amusing being in the same class as the "little kid" I used to play video games with when he was 8 years old. He's in my other Math class too. One of Shane's other friends is in the same Computer Science class I'm taking. So far I don't think I know anyone in my Linguistics class.

After school I got to stand in line to get into the bookstore so I could stand in line to pay for one book I forgot to get when I bought my textbooks weeks ago. That was oh so fun. ;-) Oh, and I had to buy a clipboard because trying to write in a binder on those little "desks" / "arm things" is next to impossible.

One good thing about starting class at 8:30am is that the parking lots aren't totally full yet. Once my first class is finished, the lots are jammed. My Computer Science prof was 5 minutes late this morning because he couldn't find parking. He had to park illegally and hope he wouldn't be towed.

Oh, one cool thing about the Computer Architecture class. It usually focuses on the 68HC11, but there is a chance some of us might get to use the H8 microcontroller the LEGO Mindstorms uses instead. I'm hoping that happens, I've already requested to use that architecture should the opportunity arise. :-)

I think the Math tutorials will really pay off. We got into the course material (combinatorials) in my "Logic and Foundations" class, and everything so far is review for me, and it probably will be for at least a week or two. That takes the pressure off a little bit. Calculus is going to be a challenge no matter what. I expect I'll continue going to see my Calculus tutor.

The Linguistics class is really cool. I've always had an interest in it but didn't realize the things I was pondering in my head were what linguists concerned themselves with. :-)

I wish I could have had a little spy camera on my glasses yesterday so I could have recorded some of the sights and scenes. It's almost like being reborn... all of a sudden I'm 19 again, I have a second chance. Yeah, I'm not 19, I'm over a hundred pounds heavier than I was at 19, and I have a bald spot, 2 kids, a wife, a mortgage and a business to run, but when I'm roaming the halls from class to class, I feel like a kid again. And that never gets old. The difference this time is I really, really want to be here, and I think I know what it takes to succeed, because I've made so many mistakes along the way.

Juggling work and school is going to be interesting. It looks like Monday and Thursday (and the weekend) are going to be the best times for me to get a lot of work done. I can still keep in touch on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday between classes, but won't have much time for working - after all, I do need to study and do my assignments and projects.

Yesterday I saw so many iPods walking from building to building. Despite their cost, they really are popular with young people. I got my iPod on Tuesday (and the much needed RAM for my new PowerBook), and I absolutely LOVE it. On Wednesday morning I was thinking maybe I need a PDA so I have easy access to my calendar, todo list, contacts etc, but then I remembered I can view all of those things on my iPod too! Last night I got that information synchronized to my iPod using iSync. It worked great. I can see why Apple hasn't been in a rush to make a PDA - they already make something nearly as good. It would be nice to be able to enter to-do items onto the iPod but I'm fine with writing them on paper and transferring them to iCal/iSync/iPod later.

Which reminds me, I have to add a couple of to-do items and a new event to iCal that I learned about in CSc 230 today. There's a CSc Course Union BBQ on September 22nd. :-) Done.

It's great to be back at school. So much has changed, but some things never do.