Mixed Feelings but ultimately the right decision

Hello Familia,

   This update comes at a bit of a strange time for me. I have been extremely busy and had spent just under 40 hours on school by the end of Yesterday. I have made a big change to my schedule and it will probably take a week or two before I really start to process the impact but I'll leave the vague intro there and get on with more specifics.

C++

   This class occupied a lot of my time last week, and that ran over into the first part of this week, but it was all related to my project Moon Lander. I ended up finishing the project with a few minor extras but refrained from going farther for two reasons. Adding onto code often has the unfortunate side-effect of breaking something unexpectedly and requiring far more time than planned to complete. I did not want to deal with that just before the big project was due. The other reason I wanted to move in is because I wanted to invest the time in my other classes. The lander program is very much playable but is only compiled for a Linux Machine and would need to be recompiled if moved to another computer- otherwise I would share a copy of the game with all of you. Maybe my instructor can help me figure out a way to do that later but, for now, you'll just have to imagine

how fun it is to play... Maybe I can make a video of the game play later if the other solution doesn't work out. The basic program involves a lander starting high on the screen while the ground and platform are randomly generated. The user gets to control 3 thrusters on the moon lander to move the lander up, right, or left and has a fuel counter visible in the upper corner. If you run out of fuel then the Lander drops and crashes. I added the ability to crash into the side of the platform as well as stars in the background though I originally intended those to be dust particles that moved around (I just ran out of time to add the motion but the stars still looked nice enough). In the image you can see all 3 thrusters firing at once and it gives you a general idea of what the program is like but this is also a glitch that occurs when trying to connect remotely to our Linux lab.

Digital Systems

   This class has been getting more demanding over the past couple of weeks. Before we were given adequate time to complete our labs during class time but I have repeatedly had to leave labs uncompleted at the end of class to head home and will have to spend a few hours in the lab tomorrow to catch up before we start a new lab on Monday. Our midterm also opens up on Monday and we have learned a lot of material lately that hasn't stuck as easily for me so I anticipate some exam preparation tomorrow and also waiting until later in the week to take the exam so that I can let my studying sink in before committing to the exam itself. We are doing a lot more that is software related now and, though it is easier to troubleshoot in theory, it can be a real pain to get things working sometimes and we often have to wait for our instructor before we can move on. Here's a mostly complete but somewhat incorrect circuit that we built on Monday. Sadly the right half is still off and we spent about an hour just trying to figure out what was wrong with our circuit. There are also 4 sub-circuits that feed into this one. It's pretty complicated to think of an example of why you would use a circuit like this but let's just say that many computer processors are set up similarly.

Human Computer Interaction

   This class has been a major focus for me this week. To be on track for the class, I was supposed to have a Windows Media Player skin created that performs (on a very basic level) the functionality that I had designed earlier in the class. Unfortunately I had nothing working by the time class was over so I sat down at my laptop and worked on the project... for hours... and hours... I got to school for class at 8:00, left at 9:30 and stayed in the hallway working on that project almost exclusively until 4 PM. I came home and rested for a bit, ate a snack, and worked away some more. After grocery shopping I continued working. I put in more than 10 hours on the project Yesterday and hit 12 hours of schoolwork in a day for the first time this semester. Thankfully, I have the basic panel working at about 90% of where I want it and I have some sample code to utilize to build the two side panels that I hope to include (they will be tricky at first but take less work over-all). The one major plus out of this all is that I spent hours using Adobe Photoshop and, though I wouldn't call myself proficient, I have definitely become far more comfortable and can use the program to build my interface fairly comfortably now. This class continues to be very challenging but also quite rewarding and I constantly feel like I am developing skills that will prove useful professionally. Here is a snapshot of my Windows Media Player skin as it stands and I promise to send out the completed project when the semester ends in about 6 weeks. The running legs are just a place holder for the scrubber and the yellow dot is a place holder for the volume slider but otherwise this image is a close approximation to the primary pane in my full design. I had to start really basic and build on it slowly (hence the 10+ hours of work yesterday) but the buttons respond and do as they are supposed to from what I can tell so things are looking significantly better than they did as recently as yesterday morning. At that point I had nothing working at all.  : /


Mobile Application Development (The Subject Line and the Big Announcement)

   After countless hours of internal debate, and a brief discussion from my instructor, I have opted to withdraw from this class. I really, really, really didn't want to but I have had to spend so much time on my other classes that I was on the fast track to an F and a withdrawal was my only other option at this point. I immediately felt some weight off of my shoulders when I determined to withdraw but my feelings are still very mixed. I guess I am having a hard time letting go of a class that I loved but simply didn't have the time for. My HCI class and this class were both out of my depth and the Digital Systems class was my first of its kind so I knew that this was going to be a challenging semester. I figured that perseverance and focus would help me win through but the major factor that I didn't account for was time and limitations on how many hours my brain would function. Thankfully this semester has taught me something about my limits and I have been able to push my boundaries as well as improving my approaches and techniques. I fully intend to take this course up again, either next semester or the following, and give it far more of my attention. The biggest issue with taking classes that are beyond my comprehension is that it takes longer to understand things. I'm already putting in roughly 40 hours a week on 3 classes and know I can be doing better is those classes if I have more time... now I do. I look forward to a second go at this class but, for now, will put those 3-6 hours a week into my other classes and maybe enjoy my time off of studies just a bit more, knowing that I won't be as far behind. I will also know what to study between tracks or over the summer so that I am well-prepared to tackle the class with far more momentum next time.


The rest of life

   As I mentioned last week, I did have a date on Friday. My date and I doubled with her brother and his girlfriend. We first went out for Mexican food and then went ballroom dancing on campus. The food was great, the dinner conversation was fine, but the dancing was soooo much fun. I had not done ballroom for several months and the warm up session with Foxtrot and East Coast Swing was all I needed to get into it. Though I don't like it as much, I even danced during a few Latin numbers. The girl was a one time date but probably will be a repeat dance partner in the future. I was supposed to have a date this week but that girl was too busy so we'll see about next week.

This week is a regional conference so us so I believe I will get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday but I'm not sure what else to expect other than a possible general authority speaker or change in leadership.

This week's devotional was not necessarily one of my favorites but the speaker used clips from the movie Polar Express to help us face our doubts and stick to the things that we know to be true, despite discouragement or times of intensity that cause us to lose focus.

One of my roommates went a little crazy and bought a weight bench, a popup punching bag (with water in the base), and some sparring gloves. It has been nice having it so easy to get a little exercise in so hopefully I'll be getting into better shape without much change in my normal routine.

That's it for me this week. I love you all and hope that life is treating you well.

Oh What a Day

Hello Mi Familia,

   I hope all is well with you. I have seen some pretty excellent pictures from Joe with the Johnsons in South Africa. I'm sure that they are on their way back by now but it was good to see their smiling faces and the good times that they had. I know that everyone has a lot going on and I hope that everyone is finding life rewarding. I don't have long to do so, but I wanted to drop a quick note to everyone and talk a bit about this week, but particularly the last day.

HCI

   The week started off with an "extended weekend" for President's Day. For me, however, it became a very focused study weekend as I spent about 11 hours on a single project alone (excluding my other classwork) between Saturday and Monday. I stayed up until 2:30 AM on Monday to turn in my 3rd project for my HCI course... which started about 5 1/2 hours after I went to bed. It was a long day but I also had a test that day and wasn't too disappointed with how I performed on the test. I think I received a B or B- on those particular endeavors but I have done far worse in the class and it was a real struggle to create what was expected of me (in part because I keep getting overly ambitious with my interface design). I had a chat with my instructor after class on Thursday and he helped me fine tune my idea to something a little more reasonable. It felt good to know that the idea itself wasn't way off base but that I just needed to execute things a little differently to coincide with the scope of the class.

C++

   This week we completed our last assignment of unit 2 and are now working anxiously to complete project 2 (moon lander) before it is due on Tuesday. Yesterday, I was working in the Linux Lab to finish the last assignment of the unit, when I had a question that I wanted to clarify with the instructor. He helped me with the last bit of the assignment and we briefly talked about the career fair that was going on that day. I honestly didn't expect much from it, as I am so early in my Computer Science journey, so I wasn't planning on going but my instructor told me to at least go and have a look around. I gathered some information and talked with a few people but one person (Dave) talked with me for a couple of minutes. I mentioned that I was early in my CS degree and he said that he likes to work with people around their first year. I was looking at Summer internship options (to try to soften the blow of college expenses and gain a little experience) and he seemed to respond positively to the idea of me applying. In fact, he showed me that he had an 8:00 appointment open the next morning and suggested I sign up for it. I told him that I would give it some thought and see him in a few minutes if I felt like it was a good move. I'm still wondering if I misunderstood him, but he did drop the pay of $18 / hr in conversation. I can hardly believe that interns would get paid so well so I'm thinking that he was referring to the full-time QA pay but that would be amazing if I heard him right. In any case, I thought about it, returned to tell Dave more about my experience thus far, and then signed up for the 8:00 time slot. Last night I went to a "programming party" (basically a gathering of students working on a project together with the instructor there to answer questions) for 4 hours, got some input from my instructor, and then edited my resume based on that feedback.

The Interview

   This morning, at 7:43, I left my house for my interview and I returned home around 8:40. The interview went quite well actually. I remembered creating a portfolio for my IBC course and decided to bring that to the interview (Dave loved it!). I printed off a few copies of my newly updated resume and brought my previous job info / references list on a flash-drive in case they were needed (they weren't). One of the questions involved how I would test a basic login dialog box that included text input for username and password, OK, and Cancel buttons. I ran through several suggestions such as testing correct input, incorrect input, incorrect case (upper / lower), etc. and Dave seemed pleased with my approach. He also suggested inputting SQL commands into the text boxes and using the link that is beyond the login screen to see if you could bypass the login altogether. It was a great test of analytic skills and I learned to think a little bit broader once I felt I had solved the question. Another question I was asked was to take the numbers from 1-100 and to count the number of times that the number "9" showed up. I'll put the the answer at the bottom of this post but encourage you all to try it and write it down if you need to. I did come up with the correct answer but my initial guess (before writing it down) was wrong so I'm glad that I simply said- "my initial guess is this but let me think about this for a moment."

   To summarize, the interview went great! Dave thought I really have the analytical skills and mind for QA. He said I should hear back soon but I really believe it because his reactions were positive pretty well the entire time. I'm sure some of you are wondering where Dave works. Well he actually works for the church so it's possible I would be doing Quality Assurance testing on Family Search if I was hired. That also means I would be living in Utah for the duration of the internship : ) I can't remember each of the places but Orem was one location that I do remember. If this works out, I may have to make a trip home and retrieve my car to use during the internship but we'll see. I'm optimistic but don't like to count my chickens before they've hatched.

So the good news: A great interview when I honestly wasn't expecting any real job opportunities for at least a few more semesters, two programming parties that have helped me make some good headway on my project (with a third scheduled for Saturday by a group of us who worked together last night), oh yeah- and I have a date tonight ; ) I'm still struggling immensely to keep up with my course load but a lot of good things are happening right now and I am doing well. I love you all and hope that you are finding lots of opportunities to live life and lots of dreams to look ahead to!

The Answer to that Question (number of 9s, counting 1-100):
Highlight the blank space below for the answer

09, 19, 29, 39, 49, 59, 69, 79, 89, 99 (10 was my initial answer, 99 counts as 2, then I remembered...
90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98     (I blurted out 20 and he said that was correct)

New Toys... strictly for business.

Dell XPS 13, 2015 Model (My New Baby)

Hello All,

    This is a long overdue update but I wanted to get at least a few things noted before I hit another week and get buried in my work again. I have been keeping plenty busy, putting in around 48 hours of school / homework this week and doing a few other things but not much else. I have also been feeling sick so some of my study time was spent just trying to turn my brain on. On Friday and Saturday night Glenn came over and we played some games on my projector in the living room. Both nights were a bit of a late start (between 8 and 9 starting time) so didn't do as much as on some other weeks. I put in a bit over 6 hours of studying Yesterday and made some progress in my mobile application development class as well as my Human Computer Interaction course. I didn't make the progress that I had hoped to but I did something and every little bit helps if that's all I can do. The other major diversions in my week were the Devotional on Tuesday (which I loved and was Valentine's themed but very light-hearted in nature) and my volunteer time at with Student Ambassadors. I'll briefly summarize both of those events because I don't think I have mentioned either before.

Weekly Devotionals:

   Every week, at BYU-Idaho, there is a devotional on Tuesday afternoons. This is often a spiritual message, given by a general Authority of the church, and occasionally a faculty member (for instance, my operations instructor gave an address last semester), that lasts about 25 minutes. There are opening and closing songs, a scripture offered by a student, and prayer. While I was on my mission in Eastern Canada, I was introduced to speeches at BYU and really grew to love many offered by Jeffrey R. Holland. I told myself that, if I ever went to a church school, I would not discount the value of the opportunity which the weekly devotional created. A couple weeks ago, we had Elder Russel M. Nelson (known in the church as an Apostle and outside the church as a world-renowned heart surgeon) come to speak with us but he also announced the new president of BYU-I to resume his role sometime next semester. One of my first devotionals (last semester) involved hearing Jeffrey R. Holland speak to us and I took it as a tender mercy because his devotional addresses had inspired me to consider a church school roughly 8 years ago... among other factors. On that note, I will also add that I love being able to see a temple from multiple places on campus and as I am walking home each day. It is inspiring and a comfort to me honestly.

   This week's devotional was a bit more light-hearted, as I mentioned, so there was a fair bit of sharing personal experience and laughter. One point that the speaker (Jack Fuller) made was about a girl that Jack had dated briefly and apparently missed an opportunity to kiss this girl. His parents were serving a mission halfway around the world and the one phone call that he had with them consisted of his father telling him that he needed to kiss that girl and he made his son promise that he would (never mind what her thoughts were on the matter). The phone call was cut off instantly and the connection was not made again. To shorten the story a bit, he told of how he was at an event, hoping to see this girl, and that she sat on a row in front of him with an empty space next to her at the end of the row. He changed his row to sit next to her and told us that this decision has made all of the difference in his life. His advice to us- "change your seat" to make things happen if they don't seem like they are happening already. I loved the thought and had experienced that thought in action before so I took it as a good reminder. For those curious about the rest of the devotional, I believe that you can listen to the rest of it here (The story I mentioned is in the first 5 minutes or so):

https://video.byui.edu/media/Jack+Fuller+%E2%80%9CValentine%E2%80%99s+Day+Resolutions%E2%80%9D/0_7q99y1ys/11602882

Student Ambassadors

   The name seems to imply something major but I'll summarize this as what it means to me- an opportunity to provide service, to break away from the daily grind, and to step outside of myself regularly. In action, the service aspect and becoming like Christ are heavily focused on but our primary task is to call and Email students who were planning on attending the school. We were to see if they had questions about registering for courses, about the campus, about the student life, etc. Essentially, we are to become a lifeline to help ease the process of coming to campus for those students. It didn't hurt my incentives that I was, initially, the only guy in the group... but I have made many good friendships over the years through service and working together in such environments so I do think this would be a good thing for me. This week I actually reached someone who was planning on starting his registration process in the following week or so and I was able to send him several online resources to help address his initial questions. It's 90 minutes away from studies each week but I think the return will warrant the investment when all is said and done.

An unplanned Diversion

   Late Thursday night, a friend of mine from back home gave me a call. She was having major doubts about dating and wanted to talk things out. I was able to give her a listening ear and also to share some things that I had learned from my own experience. It was gratifying to have a friend think enough of me to call me out of the blue and ask for advice. It was also humbling to know that my insight and experience could be of use to someone else. I have learned a lot through my own struggles and doubts but I have always found life's lessons more gratifying when you can share them with others and bless them.

Back to the usual... Becoming a programmer

    After much internal debate, and discussion with others (including peers and instructors) I decided to make a purchase as an investment in my degree. I probably spent a bit more than was needful but I kept coming back to this device and, after 3 or so months of casual laptop shopping, I ordered the Dell XPS 13, 2015 edition. It arrived early Friday, I took it to class, my instructor looked at it with me and showed me a few things. I used it to study for about 6 hours on Saturday and am doing a good job so far of keeping it as a productivity machine. This laptop is fast, the screen is bright and wonderful to look at, the device is as small as the Chromebook it is replacing (still haven't decided if I will sell the Chromebook or keep it on hand) and yet the screen is a 13.3" in comparison to the 11.6" Chromebook. I searched for a while and was able to get the laptop for $130 off the asking price as well. It has been wonderful to work on and I am doing my best to put it to good use. So far, it suits my purposes quite well and adds a lot of convenience to my programming efforts (the Chromebook / Desktop combo required a lot of workarounds to get things to work). Before I dove into the meat of the matter, I thought I would break the news on my new baby.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/13/8030821/dell-xps-13-laptop-ultrabook-review


C++

   This week has mostly been a continuation of our learning and discussion on encapsulation. (remember the example of the light switch- the other person only needs to see and operate the switch, not all of the wiring work that you did). We worked with a Date class and gave it Methods so that we could manipulate the data that it contained. Say I created an object of type "Date" called date. The object "date" has certain attributes such as a month, day, and a year (member variables). There are certain tasks that you can ask the object date to do. For example, we had the option of entering a new month, day, and year to replace the initial values of 00 / 00 / 00. We also had the option of displaying the data in multiple ways. We could display the date shorthand (02/15/2015) or longhand (February 15th, 2015). We have to write the code for each of these functions but the next programmer can simply ask the object to display the month, day, and year variable in whatever format was most desirable. The most recent assignment involved creating a "Vector" object to store the speed and direction something else is traveling. Unfortunately, this assignment took me over 5 hours to complete -  I obviously took a wrong turn or two. This is to continue our learning of encapsulation but also to write part of the code for our "Lunar Lander" project that is due in the next few weeks. If I didn't already mention this project, here is the original that it is based off of:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9f/Lunar_Lander.png

Mobile Application Development

   Sadly, I haven't had too much time to spend on this class. I spent about 4 hours trying to learn about Git and Github on Saturday. Sadly, I didn't get as far as I had hoped and didn't have the time to keep pushing on. I spent about an hour and a half learning about CSS also. In short, CSS is a language that tells our HTML webpages how to display the information that they define. It creates all of the nice spacing and color schemes that we have grown accustomed to when visiting a webpage. We can create some CSS code within the HTML document to setup patterns for a specific page or we create a separate CSS document that allows us to use the same formatting for every webpage on a website. A few years back, this wasn't possible and it took a great deal of effort to ensure that each webpage on a website looked similar enough to feel unified.

Designing Digital Systems

   I spent about 4 hours on a lab, Wednesday night, because Monday is a holiday and we won't be having class before the next lab starts. I was quite exhausted by the time that I headed home around 8:00- especially when I woke up feeling wiped out from my sickness and planned on taking a nap when I got home. At that point I just stayed up and went to bed a little earlier. The lab that we did focused on using FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). In short, they are microchips that can do a great variety of things. They are "field programmable" because you can give them a new set of instructions on how to act by connecting them to a computer and using the proper software. In essence, one chip can be used and reused for different types of circuits. In a lab, where you are trying to learn about many functions that chips are capable of, this is a great resource. I'll also add that a "gate" is a type of chip that uses logic to determine an outcome (true or false) based on its inputs. Probably the easiest to explain is the "NOT" gate. Basically, when the input is true then the output is false. When the input is false, then the output is true. This is why these gates are also called "inverters." Other gates include AND (when all inputs are true, the output is true) OR (When at least one input is true, the output is true) NOR, NAND, XOR, etc. I could go into a great deal more detail but I'll say that a real world scenario would be something like: If your car is in drive and your seatbelt is not clicked in, an alarm will sound. In this case, you would use an AND gate and you would use an inverter on the seatbelt input because it is NOT true when the desired conditions are met. I'm sure this is somewhat gibberish but that's the best quick explanation I have for now.

Human Computer Interaction

   We spent some time talking about prototyping this week. I have a project and a test on Tuesday so I will be hitting the books rather hard tomorrow, though I did spend about 2 1/2 hours on this class Yesterday. I will be designing a new interface for Windows Media Player that uses data from people I interviewed, and the current WMP interface as a starting point. We talk about such factors as how obvious certain controls are, how many steps it takes to perform a desired function, if all of the relevant information is visible to the user etc. I'll be sure to send on some of my work when I have more to share here but, for now, I'm still fairly early in the process- basically all 8 projects are one major project and this will be project 3 in the process. Our instructor is really intelligent and he used to work at Microsoft so we learn about features we didn't even comprehend on occasion- just another perk of the instructor.

This week...

The Story of Frank Cecil Okleberry Jr.

   A few weeks back I heard from Linda Cavanaugh over facebook. She told me that she talked with Michael Higgins and he would love to do an interview with me. For those who didn't know (like myself) Michael Higgins was a buddy of Dad's when he was young. When Dad used to sneak out the window, it would be to hang out with Michael. When I asked Tom what kind of stuff they would do together, he told me that I could probably get a hold of Michael and ask him myself... now I will have my chance. Michael and I plan on talking tomorrow at 1:00 (thanks to my vacation day) so that I can get some details about the days of Dad's youth. I am excited. For now, that's about all I have to share on the coming week and this week for that matter.

Stay on Target

CS 371 is starting to look up : )

   Today has been quite a long and interesting study day. After staying up until 12:30 last night, finalizing a project due in the morning, I crashed for the night and got up for a test in that same class at 8 AM. My HCI (Human Computer Interaction) course has been quite the struggle so far. The first test was graded very strictly and I only scored 9% on that test. It was devastating, honestly, when I saw that score pop up on my I-Learn (See the snapshot to get an idea of what I-Learn is). This morning, I ran out of time to complete the exam but I was writing fairly steadily so I hoped for at least a C and possibly a B-range grade. Feeling somewhat confident with the exam, I crossed my fingers and said another prayer that my project grade would be decent as well. Long story short, I received my grade on the exam already and you can see it above. "Test 2: Analysis" ... "96%"!!!! What a relief that was. Furthermore, my grade in the class went from an F just a couple weeks back, to a B- currently.

   I am still struggling to get on track with all 4 of my classes at once but I am getting close to having 3 classes with grades where I want them and enough time in my studies to work on my Mobile Application Development class. Though I have spent 15-20 hours studying for this course so far, I wanted to do a lot more and much of that had to be spent learning the basics of HTML 5 so that I could add the specific skills that our instructor is requiring of us. Honestly, I think I would like to spend most of my time studying for that course but it doesn't have a deadline structure like the others so I am just trying to reach a steady pace with my other classes that allows me additional time to pick up and run with my 4th class before it is too late to do anything about it. If you are curious what I have been and will be learning in Brother Barney's class (it took a while to get used to Brother / Sister over Mr. here) the summary is on his blog here:

https://barneyhybrid.wordpress.com/course-information/topics-and-resources/

So far I have learned basics of HTML 5 and focused more heavily on images and drawing with Canvas. Next I will be focusing on Javascript functions but I think I want to expand my knowledge of Canvas a bit more. So far I have learned how to create a small space in a webpage for drawing (a canvas) and how to draw shapes such as rectangles, circles, lines, and text boxes in that space. I have also learned how to add text and how to break the code that draws those things. Basically, I am tinkering around so that I can learn what it all does and how to fix / not break it as I use HTML & Canvas to program in the future. I am also learning to use an online collaboration tool for programming called GitHub. I am still learning the basics of how to use it but most of the code that I build from here on out will be uploaded there. I am not positive how to link the content but here's a stab at linking the first HTML file that I've uploaded:

https://github.com/JohnOkleberry/HTML-Canvas.git

Something else that I thought the family might appreciate is this video that we watched in my HCI class. We were having a discussion about Mission Statements and Executive Summaries and how to make them effective and concise. This is, in essence, what not to do... I'll also add that several people in our class responded that they felt they were listening to a speech from a politician at parts.

http://youtu.be/9LIAI2tEApc

I am spending much more time on my C++ class than I had anticipated these past couple of weeks but am still hoping to press on and start knocking more items off my Mobile Application Development. Today I am feeling more in control of my classes than I have in a while and only have one assignment due on Thursday so that should help with my game plan. I have also set a pretty tight schedule in my Google Calendar that allows for 9 hours of study each weekday and lets me end by 11:00 so that I have some time to wind down, to go to bed early, or to catch up if something interrupted my studies during the day. Yesterday some things came up and I only made it to 8:45 but today something else shifted and I ended up with 10 hours of study between class time and studying outside of class. Let's hope I can keep this up! ... at least until Saturday. I had more to say but I'll leave this post here for now and get back to that sleep I was talking about...

One Last Note:

That thing that I mentioned falling through today (that gave me extra time to study) well... it didn't exactly fall through. In my haste to schedule in adequate study time and balance other things in my schedule I accidentally put the end time of a meeting as the start time. I was rushing in to the meeting and saw one of my cohorts walking out. When she reminded me of the time I felt so clumsy about the whole thing but thankfully it wasn't a big issue. I just had to laugh it off, fix my calendar, and be grateful for the fresh air I got during my short break from the books.