I will be at my keyboard all weekend working on a response to a request for proposal (RFP) from a company that I really want as a client. I actually enjoy working over the weekend when the task involves writing or the task involves something that I truly want. This particular effort checks both boxes.
It is a good weekend to be home working. It is set to be cold and windy all weekend. The temperature drop is expected to be gradual throughout the night and tomorrow morning. Additionally, the first round of NFL playoffs starts this weekend. I like staying home and working while I watch football.
Little Chirp will be here with me. He will no doubt want to watch some football too. He got home from school, and he headed immediately to his basketball goal to take advantage of the incredible weather we had this afternoon. He is now working on a stir fry for dinner. I hear the smoke alarm going off, and then him saying, “My bad! No worries, everything is under control. There is just oil all over the stove now.”
I will gladly clean the stove if dinner tastes just half as good as it smells. I will be getting back to my diet on Monday. In the meantime, there will be beef stir fry, pot roast, and chicken pot pie. I am finally 100% over to whatever vicious illness gripped me during the holidays, and I have my appetite back. I plan to enjoy some cold weather foods this weekend.
I hope that Brainy Bird has some cold weather foods to enjoy in South Carolina. They may be hit with a winter storm over the weekend. It is significant enough to make the news here, and he may see some snow. It could also be a non-event as the direction and severity of the storm is both figuratively and literally up in the air. There is a cafeteria inside their dormitory. I am not sure what would happen if workers couldn’t get to the cafeteria. I rest assured knowing that ss long as there is food, Brainy Bird will have the situation handled.
He just finished his first week of classes for second semester. The semester started on Monday, and he only has the standard Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Tuesday/Thursday classes this semester, so when we talked on Tuesday afternoon, he had already been to all of his classes. He likes all of them. He has four honors courses, and then one large computer science class. The professor teaching the large class was his professor for digital logic last semester, and he was excited about that.
He is still getting used to having a different professor for nearly every computer science class. I know that he misses his high school computer science teacher that he had all four years with. They grew together as the course work became more and more advanced. They still email back and forth as Brainy Bird loves sharing insights into what he is learning in college. There is no question that Brainy Bird arrived at college exceptionally well prepared thanks to his high school teachers.
His classes this semester are Honors Speach, Honors Transition to Advanced Mathematics, Honors Digital Logic II, Honors Mathematics for Shakespeare, and Computer Science Advanced Programming Techniques. He has a college experience unique to that of my own and most in that he knows nearly everyone in his speech class. The class is comprised of his fellow honors students that he lives in the honors dorm with. This has him excited about a class that he would probably otherwise dread. He actually knows a few students in everyone one of his classes. I rarely knew anyone in any my classes in college.
So far, he likes all of his classes. During his scholarship interview weekend, they did a sample of the Mathematics in Shakespeare class, and Brainy Bird said right after that if he gets the big scholarship, he is headed to South Carolina, and he definitely plans to take that class. Fast forward less than a year, and there he is in the class. I am extremely curious to hear about the work in this class. He will be using quantitative techniques to analyze Shakespeare. He is a closet literature lover, so the idea of reading, discussing what he read, and getting analyze the work with math instead of writing an essay about what he believes the characters are feeling has him stoked.
Majoring in computer science, doing lots of programming AND taking courses that have nothing to do with computer science is exactly what he wanted. He doesn’t view the honors degree requirements as overhead to his degree. He views them as an exciting opportunity to explore other interests. He spends a lot of time analyzing the different honors courses and deciding which ones he will take to fulfill which of the requirements. Needless to say, I am excited for him.
Well, it is time for me to get back to work. Have a great weekend all!