Week 15: A Week of Presentations, Races, and Holiday Cheer: Last Week of Class Update
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”
– Robert Collier
By: Hong Bing Tang December 8th, 2024
12/02/2024 to 12/08/2024
Introduction:
How’s it going everyone! I hope you all had a great first week of December! This week was the last lecture week of college! Time flies by super-fast and I cannot believe that the semester is almost ending! Join me as I update you on what I have done for the second to last week of the semester!
School:
This week was a strange week for academics. I had two different presentations and 2 exams as well. However since it was the last week of class before exams, in all my classes I did not learn any new content at all. Instead I had to present about the Physics of the MRI for my Intro to electro-magnetics class along with another presentation about our the Arduino project that Joey, Abby, and I did in our microprocessors class. I do enjoy presentations since I like to do practice my public speaking even if it is only in a small setting like a class. Although I get slightly nervous when having to but its almost like a good type of energy and doesn’t cause too much anxiety or anything. The presentations were a great wrap up to these classes before the exams.
This week I had two exams as well since these classes had retakes for them that would happen during exam week! This was nice since if I did good on the exams, instead of worrying about five exams next week I would only have to worry about three. However these two exams were in my hardest classes and I was on the border between a A- and B+ in both of these classes. My motivation for both of these classes were low so I did not do much studying for either of these exams since I felt confident since I had done good on the homework and knew that if I did really bad I would have the opportunity to redo some of the questions. However when I took the exam I was able to do really good on both of them and somehow finish with a A in both of them since I did really good and also got a little bit of extra credit. Overall I am glad that both of those classes are over now and I can focus on my other classes next week.
Festive Spirit!
For our one-month anniversary, Jessie and I decided to make some gingerbread houses since it was finally getting close to Christmas, and as a bonus it was also slowing outside! Carson had told us that the ginger bread house that he and Abby had done was super hard and he got impatient and could not get it to stand. Luckily for us, I had bought some smaller ginger bread houses which I believe made the construction and drying time easier. Unfortunately for us, when we opened the package, the sides of one of the houses was broken so we had to preform surgery and uses the icing to glue the two parts together. Surprisingly this worked and after lots of trial and error, getting our hands covered in icing, and lots of patience we were able to build and decorate all four of our ginger bread houses!
Game day!
The big event of the week was on Friday! Since my cross country season had ended a little earlier than I had wanted it to, I decided in late october that I would train for a indoor 5k. After training mainly bymyself for the past month and a half, the time had finially come to race! Miciah and I were the only guys that were racing at the meeting so we both travelled together to the meet. I had not run a indoor race, due to injury, since my senior year of high school so I was not really sure what to expect of it but I was super excited to get out and give it my all in be in the racing enviroment which is always super estatic. The past couple of week for workouts had gone really well and I knew I was fit and could easily smash my PR from last year. What made the race even more special though was the support from friends and teammates. Nearly the whole guys team made the journey to watch Miciah, and I along with the girls team run and there support fuel and really helped throughout the race when things got tough. Additionally one of my high school friends, Xavier was able to make it out to the race as well and stood in a spot that made it impossible to not be able to hear him. Overall I was able to have an amazing race and PR by 18 seconds. It hurt like crazy during the race but with the support of teammates and new confidence/mentallity for racing I was able to run amazing and am super proud of myself.
After the race I was able to watch other teammates run the 5k as well and all the girls and Miciah were able to PR which was amazing! After running my cool down, all of us guys headed to Chick-Fil-A where I ordered a “victory feast” and had a nice surprise when I found out that Adam, and Goose were also coming to the Chick-Fil-A which was super excited since I hadn’t see either of them in such a long time and I was able to catch up and hear how their lives were going! Overall this day was one to remember!
Fun times:
Oh, I love Friday races because I have all Saturday to be lazy and not do anything. I was able to hang out with Jessie during the late morning and early afternoon. Afterwards, I watched some TV before we headed to the guy’s house to watch Emily race which she ran well and ate some pizza. Additionally, we also watched the Georgia and Texas game along with see Graham Blanks pop off and run a sub 13 min 5k. The big event of the evening however was that Adam, Goose, and Isaac were all in town, so we hung out and chatted with each other. Additionally, we played some darts and pool and some of the guys started to pick on each other and somehow Ethan, like usual, ended up getting wrestled and was on the ground. We ended up at dog central and got some hot dogs where I called it a night and headed home and watched some Harry potter with Abby, Carson, Emma, and Jessie.
Conclusion:
As December wraps up, it’s been a whirlwind of academic challenges, festive moments, and unforgettable experiences. From conquering tough exams and presentations to celebrating with gingerbread houses and cheering on teammates at a race, this week has been full of highs. Despite the stress, I’m ending the semester with a sense of accomplishment, ready to enjoy the upcoming break with friends and loved ones. Can’t wait to see what next week brings!
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