You're no problem at all

Class turned out to be ok. The four hours went by much quicker than expected and OneNote performed admirably as a note-taking tool.

We had to form 4-person "writing groups" on our own, which is kind of weird in a classroom full of people that don't know each other. Oddly enough, I did know one person in class - he was in my last group at Microsoft and was part of a group of folks I went to lunch with occasionally. So we decided to be in the same group and found 2 other guys looking for some more people.

I gotta say, group projects terrify me. I'm just more of an independent worker. But none of our assignments are actually group efforts. We each write up the assignment for the week and our writing group reviews it and provides feedback. That I can handle. So far it's working out pretty well - one of the guys set up a Yahoo! Groups site for us to post messages and our drafts. Yay for technology. Oh, and we're planning to go to Happy Hour this week. It works better for me if I'm comfortable with the people who are trashing my writing ;).

The class seemed to be mostly "non-traditional" students, or at least people who aren't 20 years old. So that was cool. And the other students seem pretty interested and motivated. I am really glad I'm only taking one class - I've already spent a couple of hours on the reading and homework, and I'm not even halfway done. I've got two writing assignments to complete this week, which shouldn't be too difficult, but I also have a ton of reading in the 3 (!) required textbooks we have. I think it's going to be a lot of work, but not terribly difficult. (Unless the prof thinks my writing sucks, in which case it's going to be a long and painful quarter.)

I'm having flashbacks to that stupid remedial composition class I had to take at Caltech, when something like 60% of my class got stuck in ESL or remedial English for no apparent reason. The best was the native English speakers who had to take ESL. I wasn't that unfortunate.

Did some cooking today with so-so results. Annie's white cheddar mac 'n' cheese with some fresh steamed broccoli came out pretty dry for some reason. I guess being all-natural has its drawbacks - no chemicals to make the sauce nice and gooey. I also steamed some vegetables in soy sauce and rice vinegar with garlic and ginger, but they didn't taste too good. And I baked the beets I got in the Pioneer Organics box. I think I just don't like beets unless they're the marinated ones you find in the salad bar. Well, at least I have food for this coming week, which is going to be crazy busy.

Here's a special shout out to Kristin who's moving back to DC in a week. I'm sad that she'll be so far away again, but hope she likes her new job better!

G'night!