Learning is great, so is completing games

Yesterday reddit guided me to the wonderful world of free video lectures from great schools, specifically this introductory programming course at MIT that seems to have been filmed in the last year or two. I’ve watched two of these lectures so far, and it’s crazy how much faster MIT computer science goes than NYU CS does. I’m now in Data Structures, which is the second officially required class for CS majors, third if you count NYU’s “Introduction to Computers and Programming” prerequisite. This single-semester class that I found on MIT’s website covers a lot of mathematical and algorithm-related topics that we still haven’t covered in Data Structures. I know I’m only a month into my course, but it’s at least fair to say that this MIT course is worth two (or more) that I’ve taken at NYU. Crazy. But the great part is that I can watch all the lectures for free. Which I’ve certainly been doing. I’ve found the section of the class that’s right around what we’re currently talking about in Data Structures, as well as another Basic Algorithms class that I can watch after that. Learning is a lot of fun.

That’s been a good part of my day, as has waking up and finally cleaning the kitchen again, which took upward of 90 minutes to do top to bottom. It’s nice, though, because now it looks spiffy and it’s all my fault. I also finally, after many hours, completed Super Mario Galaxy 2 (that is, got 241 stars). The single green star I spent the longest on was the first in the Boo Moon Galaxy, which as you can see from the video is kind of difficult. The last level (Grandmaster Galaxy) was far too easy, I only ended up trying it about ten times before I finished it. I know that sounds like a lot, but it’s not compared to the second-to-last level, which cost me about twenty lives. Still, what a great game. I remember quite a while back I was complaining that I had to do the “whole game over again”, and now it’ finally done. Boom goes the dynamite.

And my Andrew WK shirt is now in my possession and on my body. Again, boom goes the dynamite. Also, there have been rumors going around that the photo I posted of myself in elementary school a few days ago is not actually me. Let me assure you that this is not the case. It’s really me. I know it’s hard to believe I was actually ever that cute. Just deal with it.