Clean-up Time!

Lalalalalalala... it's Friday again! Have you noticed how I'm always really happy on Fridays? I wonder why...

Anyways, today was very uneventful, due to Mr. Arkin's absence. Teacher absence = free work period though, and that was very nice. I spent the entire period cleaning up my website based on the teacher comments from my autobiography mark, and creating the Programming Glossary... It's been a long time since I've visited my own website!

I wasn't able to get any programming done in class, but I managed to completely finish refurbishing my website (and that's quite feat)! The new glossary is up and running as well, if you want to check it out; just go to touque.ca/EC/, click on ICS2O, Student Work, and conveniently find my name at the very bottom of the last list!

So this weekend means time to do some programming and finish up those Selection assignments! But for now, all I'm concerned about is getting some quality sleep. Good night!

More Selection, Disruptions

Yes... today was a work period for us, to update our Selection assignments! They are officially due Monday. Tomorrow will be a work period as well, because Mr. Arkin will not be here. So dear guest teacher: I wonder if you can put up with us...

Not much discussion was done as a group today; a few questions got cleared up, and then it was right to work. At least until...

BRRRRRRRRINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG!

Wonderful — a fire drill. Did I mention we just had one two days ago? Joy. I don't understand why there has to be two in a week. Especially considering we used to have one every few months... we know what to do already! After the little disruption though, it was back to work.

Tomorrow, in addition to the guest teacher, is also our school Halloween! It's not that big of a deal, but I want do something a little out of the ordinary... still don't know exactly what yet, but I'll come up with something!

Is That the Truth?

Today we learned the unary and binary boolean operators, then making "Truth Tables"! It all had to do with the two binary boolean operators, and and or. It looks like this:

true + or + true = true
true + or + false = true
false + or + true = true
false + or + false = false
true + and + true = true
true + and + false = false
false + and + true = false
false + and + false = false

So today was all about determining truth from false, I guess. Then we set off to work on Selection Assignments #3-7. When you add selection and boolean expressions into the equation, it sure gets a whole lot more interesting! Today was a fun class.

Other than that, I messed up my 100% Music average today, so I'm feeling pretty bad. >:( Stupid playing test... oh well, I suppose it's just music. I'll just sleep it off and feel better tomorrow. Bad night!

Selection, Bad Timing, and a Drug Test

Today was the official start to our fourth programming unit: Selection! This concept will add a whole new twist to our programs — the results will vary even more now that the user will begin to have more than one option to choose from! We only went over some really basic examples today, but we are well on our way to an awesome new unit!

Next, we had a little pop quiz — D: — where we had to write a program that calculates the user's BMI (Body Mass Index). While I found the quiz to be quite easy, our time was interrupted by a fire drill! Such nice timing. But the thing is, by the time the fire drill was finished and we went back upstairs, our test papers had vanished into thin air! So, while I did finish in time, many of my classmates unfortunately did not.

Then, right after our little "CS surprise", we did a drug test in Health class! Guess what... I failed. Now, hopefully you didn't think I was talking about one of those tests where they see if there are drugs in your system... Would I really fail one of those? No, instead it was an end-of-unit test for our Substance Abuse Health chapter. And I probably didn't fail-fail, but I'm not sure exactly how well I did. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

So all in all, my day was just wonderful. Just wonderful. Oh, did I mention I learned some unwanted news, which I will not share with you guys for reasons I also cannot share? Just wonderful, eh? At least it was a late start.

Tables and Desk-Checking, Rant on Election Day

Today was all about tables and desks... well fine, not literally. But those were the two topics for today. "Desk-checking" means following the route the computer takes when running a program. Today we spent the first half of the period practising "one of the most valuable skills we have learned". Then we looked at arithmetic and relational operators. For homework, we were to create a program that displayed a table for both sets of operators, after two user-supplied integers.

So, well, not that much action today in Lab 218... However, we will be starting the Selection unit soon, so that should pick things up.

In other news... ROB FORD IS THE NEW MAYOR OF TORONTO! Egh... in truth, I didn't like any of the candidates this year, but Ford seemed like the "little-bit-better-one" out of the worst? Personally, I'd probably support Joe Pantalone, but only because he looked like the nicest person out of the three front-runners—he'd probably make a really good friend. His platform however... wasn't exactly the greatest.

George Smitherman on the other hand, even though the press was all over him, I didn't really hear much about his plans should he become mayor. The only thing they focused on about him was how he was the only chance for the "anyone-but-Ford" campaign later on in the race. Thus because I didn't know anything about Smitherman, I probably wouldn't have voted for him.

Well... that leaves Rob Ford. Let me just say something: REPEATING "THE GRAVY TRAIN" 10 BILLION TIMES IS NOT GOING TO HELP YOUR CASE. At least, not with me. After hearing that same phrase a hundred times, I was not amused. It didn't help when I learned of his history as a druggie. However though, I have to admit from what I've heard, his plans and ideas are the "best of the worst"... I mean, you have to agree that reducing taxes is tempting. However, I'm not sure exactly how much of his plans are going to actually come true—guess we'll just have to watch and see.

So all in all, If I reallyreallyreally had to choose...? I'd choose Sarah Thomson. Because she dropped out. That's how much I thought the rest of the candidates sucked. No offense to anyone here, I'm sure you're all good people, but I just don't think any of you would make a good mayor for Toronto. Sadly though, my opinions will probably never be heard... especially not by Rob Ford and his gravy train.

It's Almost Time to Move On

We are almost at the end of the Input assignments! That is really great because then we can finally move on to Selection, which is a whole new way to enhance programs. We were supposed to print out all our program codes (to have them as a reference), so today in class was spent doing just that.

Since I am already done all the required assignments due, I continued on with a few of the Selection ones. They are quite... interesting. But tonight I'll get a break—I'm going bowling with my friends! Then tomorrow is my friend's birthday party! So I'll be pretty busy throughout the weekend. Next week I have a Health test, a Music playing test, and a Math quiz, not to mention CS homework! So my hands will definitely be full these two "supposedly-relaxing" days.

Have a good weekend everyone! TGIF ;)

Oh the Horror of Input Assignment 4...

Well, not really. But still. Today was spent as a class, working yet again on assignment 4! There was (again) lots of talk, because everyone had different perspectives as to how to write the program. It was the processing section, actually where we spent all our time, because there was some debate as to how to actually calculate the average speed—it was long but simple vs. short but complicated. In the end, it was decided that long and simple won, because not everyone thought in the "supposedly-complicated" way (which I fought for). However, we left headquarters gaining some new insight, and another night to work on finishing Input assignments.

Next to tackle will probably be the Selection section. I decided to read ahead a little today since I'd already finished all the Input assignments. The concept itself is not difficult at all, but there are definitely some added challenges within the assignments themselves—like making text different colours! I read the Help page in Turing, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't get it to work! I'll have to ask Mr. Arkin about it tomorrow in class.