Well, my phone/internet/cable were set up yesterday, so I can re-join the ranks of humanity now!
As Riqui posted, the trip cross-country was pretty uneventful. Once I got West of Abilene, the speed limit jumped up to 80MPH, so that was pretty nice. Arizona was unbelievably hot - 113F during the day, and it was still 108F when I stopped for the night in Phoenix at 7:30pm! Honestly, it reminded me of the Persian Gulf more than anything else. While I was in Phoenix, I had Mike at Aesthetic Creations install the graphics he had designed for my car - I'll post pictures in the appropriate forum.
I got in on Friday the 29th and spent the night in the Bachelor's quarters on base. On Saturday, I was able to find an apartment available for immediate occupancy, as well as find a bed that could be delivered the same day. Over the next two days, I was able to pretty much furnish the entire apartment and get all of the stuff I wasn't able to bring along with me in the car.
Other than checking in and doing a bunch of administrative work, school didn't really start until Thursday. My homework the first night was pretty much a refresher of all of the algebra and trig I took 19 years ago and have since forgotten, along with a little bit of Calculus. That first batch of homework took me six hours, but I can feel it all coming back now. It been a long time since I've done "math without numbers", but there were only two or three problems (out of about 60) that really had me stumped, and I was able to figure them out after talking to the other students and the instructor the next day.
The classes are small - only about a dozen or so students. Also, the Naval Postgraduate School is kind of unique in that 99% of the instructors have their PhD, and there are no graduate teaching assistants like there were when I was going to school for my Bachelor's. It's kind of nice, because there were a lot of times back in college where I'd sign up for a class because of the professor's reputation, only to find out that the entire course was actually taught by the Teaching Assistant, while the professor was off hunting down grant money or whatever it is that professors do.
Buying books was the same shock as I remember from my undergrad engineering days. We receive a $125 stipend each quarter to offset the cost of books, which is nice, but my Physics book alone was $171, so the stipend isn't much of an offset. Oh well, if I wanted cheaper textbooks, I'd have been an English Lit major and not an engineer.
Right now, it looks like my degree will be a Master's of Science in Applied Physics. There may be a chance to switch over to a MS in Software Engineering, which would be more in-line with my undergrad work. I'll find out if there are any slots available this week.
That's about all that's going on right now - I'l post the car pictures in a few minutes. I miss all of you and hope everything back home is going great. I hear it's been hot and muggy recently - I hope the weather calms down a little bit.
I'll still be checking PM's and posts here, and my old e-mail address (
gardners14@cox.net) still works fine. My new address is
scott.r.gardner@comcast.net, but either one will work.
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