Taking a break and counting de Reese’s

First Reese’s cup: 02:10. Computer Architecture Homework #1 done. Albeit with many tears and some crucial help from Luke. So he gets a Reese’s cup tomorrow later if I remember, and I’m trying not to feel bad for breaking my “no help” rule, even though I gave him credit on the assignment.

How many hours did I spend trying to find a way to symbolically separate a 32-bit immediate (constant) into its two halves in MIPS assembly? Let’s not count, shall we?

I’m going to steal a little of Luke’s thunder and make mention of his story about keeping things in perspective. Actually, I’m just going to mention the key point: how does one college student who’s taking 16, 17, 18 credit hours of very difficult classes stand next to another student who’s been in Iraq for the past year and a half and complain about being tired?

No one wants to be a whiny bitch. All things in perspective; recognize that you are choosing to step back a little and get a slightly wider view. Yes, whining about classes means nothing in the long run. Yes, many others, including some people that you may interact with, are going or have gone through shit tons worse. But you knew that going in, really (or I hope so). So there’s one perspective.

I would argue that said complaining could be done, however with no shame to the complainer. All things in perspective; remember who lives in your head day to day and rides the waves of your reactions–you more than anyone else. No one else lives in your head; no one else is going through exactly what you are or have. This creates what many would call a selfish world-view, but one can only minimize one’s problems so much before they cease to be solved or handled out of a concern for being too trivial or “selfish”.

Jumping to a completely different topic, just because it’s almost 03:00 and I can do that: the Hamilton Center. Mention to almost any non-freshman Rose student that a missing student is at Hamilton, and conversation will end with an, “Ah.”

The Hamilton Center is most known for being the place where attempted suicides are sent.

People kept at the Hamilton Center for more than a day or two have supposedly shown “violent behavior”, including crying (!?!) or cutting themselves.

What’s it gotta be like to be there second week of the school year?

Thinking of links between Aaron and this week’s news and my own surpising emotional instability lately won’t get me far in getting this week done successfully. So back to dry homework and eye-balling the Reese’s cups I go.