The semester is almost done.  This is both comforting and not, however. 

It's not comforting since this next Thursday I'll have three consecutive tests.  The first test shouldn't be too bad.  It's technically my CHEM final.  In order to get an A in the class, I'd need 100% on the test.  Seeing as how this isn't going to happen, the least I can get in order to keep my B is 60%.  The latter is very doable.  Next, however, I have my Modern China final.  It shouldn't be too bad either, it's just going to be a lot of writing.  She gave us a sheet with 7 possible essay questions, of which she'll put four on the test and we have to answer two.  This week I'll just have to spend time outlining my answers to all the possible questions (one of which is "What has this class taught you?").  Then I have my last Philosophy test.  Once again, not too hard, but I'll have to spend a lot of time looking over my notes.

That weekend my entire pledge class is going up to Iowa to camp out on one of our pledge brother's farms.  That'll be a pretty good relaxant between this week and Finals Week. 

On Monday of finals week I have my US history final.  This is the one that I'm most worried about.  The professor (who's British) expects to basically be experts on US history during the period.  He's constantly putting up pictures and asking "Anyone know who this is?" which usually results in an awkward period of silence before he realizes that nobody in the class knows, nor cares, who the person is. 

Thankfully, however, that is the only stressful point of Finals Week for me.  I'll just have a Philosophy paper due on Wednesday and then on Thursday our Philosophy final is basically to show up and play a kind of Philosophy Trivial Pursuit for participation points. 

I'll just be happy for the semester to be over so I can get stuff done at home (organizing, cleaning, and such) as well as concentrate on my two sports dynasty modes. 

I've got a "Race for the Heisman" mode going in NCAA Football 07.  My guy is currently a Junior, and a phenomenal running back with Mizzou.  I need to finish out his career so that I can start a Dynasty game.  Not sure which team I'm going to go with on that one.  I've also got a Dynasty game going on NCAA 06 March Madness with the Texas Longhorns.  I'll see how well I do in that since I've never really played a basketball video game before.  Maybe I should get more familiar with it before diving into a Dynasty.

For those of you that don't know, in Dynasty mode you are basically the coach of whatever team you choose.  Your goal is get your team to become one of the best.  In between playing the actual games, you also deal with recruiting, dealing with punishing players who break NCAA policy, and deal with other various aspects of team management.  At the end of your contract, you either stay with the same team or are let go (and hopefully picked up by another team) depending on how well you did during your stay at that school.  It's definately something fun to try if you really love the sport. 

This summer should be pretty fun.  I'm taking an online computer programming class (Python) and working in the computer labs (which will let me work on my homework for that class).  This means that all of the time I'm not at work will be free-time. 

*sigh*

Can't wait.

So, I'm not even a graduating senior and I already hate the Registrar Office.

Basically, here's the deal:

The class in question is PHRE 185 (Exploring Religions).
This class is currently counting as my Philosophical/Religious general studies requirement
It is also counting towards my PHRE minor.

Being a History major, one of the requirements I have to fulfill is that I need 15 hours in one discipline.  People generally use their minor to fulfill this 15-hour requirement.  When I looked online to see where exactly my classes were counting on my degree program, I saw that PHRE 185 showed up in my PHRE minor, but not in the 15-hour History requirement.

Talking to the registrar, it turns out that even though that class can count towards my minor, it can't count towards that 15-hour requirement.  Basically, this means that I can't fulfill this requirement simply by completing my PHRE minor...I have to take another class on top of my minor.  I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but if the damn class would have counted in that stupid requirement, then I could work full time over the summer and make $200 more a month by not having to take a class.  I then could have taken 12 hours in the Fall and in the Spring. 

I don't know.  I know it seems stupid, and it is.  It's more annoying than anything really.


In other news, I finally figured out why my games having been looking as good as they should have been....response time.  Here's the simplified version:

The image that your monitor puts out is made up of about 1 million tiny dots called pixels.  On LCD monitors, these pixels can only change their given value so often (i.e. what color that pixel is).  On my current monitor, the pixels can only refresh every 40 milliseconds.  This seems like a short time, but it makes a noticeable difference in gaming (and current LCD monitors have response times of 5 milliseconds).  Fast movements create blurring, and the game fails to look as sharp as the rest of my computer is making it.  I think what I'm going to try is switching my LCD for Jessica's CRT monitor since CRTs don't deal with pixel response times.

Perchance this will fix the problem.