I did an intramural swim meet today. I thought - no, I think I'm pretty athletic, but swimming... it's like it takes a whole different type of stamina. Granted I was doing the butterfly stroke, which is apparently pretty exhausting (and probably moreso if you don't really know how to do it, like me), but even so... I was not able to finish strong or even moderately, and I felt sick afterwards. WEAK.

I'm trying to gain weight for rope pull. My original plan was to eat a lot, and not eat very nutritiously. Oh, and maybe work out a little more. However, last week I worked out a lot extra and I ate just a little more than normal. When I weighed myself after swimming, I had actually lost five pounds or so. Bah!

The antidote? PROTEIN SHAKES!!!

I really should have done more homework earlier in the weekend. I used to be so good at getting work done, in high school! What happened!?

My classes are HARD this semester. They've been getting harder every semester - both in material and in competitiveness. Freshmen year I was a smarter and harder worker than most of my classmates. I would be very hesitant to make that claim now, especially in my BME classes.

Many thanks to the brothers that have helped me out...

Kai
Big Nate
TI-89

Others...thank you.

I've been feeling the urge to be active, but I want to do things that are fun. Twice now I've IMed about 20 people looking for a racquetball partner.

Today I asked Kai if he wanted to do something, and we ended up lifting. Lifting weights is not fun. It was great, though. I need to lift more; I think today was the first time since Christmas Break.

Of course, today I am PUMPED UP and PISSED OFF for ROPE PULL!
We had a rope pull meeting today. Rope pull is so amazing. Ask me about it some time if you haven't heard.

Physical activity has become a very regular activity for me. I crave it, even. That seemed to develop after I started exercising a lot. Gee, I wonder how I should get myself to exercise myself spiritually and academically more, and build good sleeping habits...

I've been pretty busy. Fencing club stuff is escalating, as is schoolwork. A LOT. Fencing has a big tournament coming up, and there's some issues with kendo "fencers" and officers and attendance and coaching... Schoolwork is piling on with tests and homework assignments and catching up on lessons.
I've also got to catch up with the things I've meant to d0 - set up shadowing of physicians!
Oh, I started working again. Good ol' honest electrode-building. Not like the annoying data calibration I was doing at the end of last semester.

Despite these things, I managed to enjoy my first Valentine's Day as a romantically committed man. I think Kristy liked my gifts, which included a love letter, a song over the phone, and some items in Diablo II. Hehe. I had fun with those gifts. She inspires romanticism in me; not something I'm used to, but I like it.

I'll close with a link to an interesting article I saw, about shooting locks off with guns:
http://www.lifelibertyetc.com/RangeBag.aspx
It's the third article down (as of 02/15), dated April 24th.

Hello, dear professors,

Regarding EBME 309,

Nice discussion today. Two points I would like to add:

1) Better hints (clearer, more detail) on the homework assignments would be great. This could save students that think they have errors when they don't, help students who aren't sure what method to use or where to start, or assist those of us who can't figure out some of the Matlab code.

2) Dr. Tyler, you said that it is "most important" to show our thought process. There are a lot of important things in life; as a once and future student, GRADES are important to me. When I was doing problem 3 last night, I got the solution that exploded, and thought to myself, "I could show my work and explain my process, but I would still get just a little partial credit." I worked on it until I got some help from another student, who was able to use a trick to get the working approximation. My student's intuition guides me to use a poorly-understood correct answer over a well-explained wrong answer. This produces better grades.

What I want to know is this: can I get an "A" on my homework assignments by explaining my thought process, even if my results (and therefore my methods) are incorrect?

OK. Thanks for your hard work. I see first-hand how whiny and annoying us students can get, especially in a class that has difficult-to-understand material, and doesn't interest most students (sorry...some of my peers say they don't see the material as useful). My sympathies.

Yours,

Nick Stephanoff

Student,

Case Western Reserve

P.S. I haven't had any Matlab liscense problems.