Sunday, February 20, 2005

Midterms make me sleepy

Well, it's that time again.. midterm exams.

If there's one thing I won't miss about school it'll be the two weeks leading up to exam time. Life has been absolutely insane lately. Luckily, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. All I've got left are one take-home exam and one midterm paper, and a few other smaller reading and homework assignments.

EECS 376 has been the bane of my existence this term. Here's the course description:

An introduction to computation theory: finite automata, regular languages, pushdown automata, context-free languages, Turing machines, recursive languages and functions, and computational complexity.

Don't get me wrong -- It's actually been quite interesting and relevant. It's just one of those experiences I'm sure I'll value more once it's behind me (like high school, right?). The homework assignments consist almost exclusively of proofs, like this one:

Define the language INFLBA = {<M> : M is an LBA and L(M) is infinite}. Prove that neither INFLBA nor its complement are recognizable.

Can you do it?

Despite the difficulty and endless workload, they're actually a bit fun to conquer. Wikipedia has been an amazing resource in explaining complex concepts and theorems.

Spring break begins next Friday, and I'll be taking a short trip out to Seattle. When I interviewed with Microsoft back in November, I didn't get much of a chance to explore the area. Actually, I didn't leave myself time to explore the area in order to avert depression in the event that I didn't get the job. So now, I figure it'll be fun to go back and explore some of the neighborhoods. I've also got a dinner planned with my future coworkers -- really looking forward to that.

I'm also beginning to plan a trip to Israel in May with some family and friends to visit some family and friends, and to have an all around good time. More on that later.

Well, it's time to get some sleep. 10 hours of studying at the Media Union has just about drained every last bit of energy out of my system. What a way to spend your Sunday.

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