How cool is that? I didn't realize it until just this past week. The book came with a CD, which I tried to use on my computer but didn't have much luck. It says it's Mac compatible, but when I popped it in, it tried to run Windows on my comp via Parallels, which is not a good thing, Parallels being amazingly flaky and crash-prone. So I pretty much gave up on using the computer as a study aid, and just figured I'd do it all the old-fashioned way. Which, frankly, hasn't been working all that badly for me thus far. But one of my classmates put me on to the book's actual website, and it's pretty damned useful! It has all kinds of interactive tools plus several tests per chapter, as well as bonus materials. It has really helped me figure out what I have down and what I need to look at more going into my next exam.
Got me thinking about "back in the day" when I first went to college. I went to Carnegie -Mellon University, which at the time was referred to as Computer U. They had a vision - a computer in every dorm room. They weren't there as of the time I left, but they were still well ahead of the times in that regard. EVERY student - and we are talking a diverse lot, everything from music and drama majors to hard science and engineering majors - had an account on the schools mainframe (remember those?) and had to take a programming class. We learned Pascal, which I believe is actually still in use, not that I could actually still write a program in it. It was actually a pretty cool class in that it taught you a bit about thinking/thinking things through/testing your work. The computer could only do what you told it to do, so if your program didn't work, well, you f'd up, and had to tease out your own mistake. Debugging became one of my favorite things there for a little while.
And now, textbook publishers have book-specific websites, and people carry powerful computers to the actual classroom. A-mazing.
Had a really great day for running yesterday, and bombed myself with a really challenging run. I strung together just about every hill I could without doing any significant backtracking, with a mix of steep ups and downs and gradual ups and downs. I can throw in at least one more level of difficulty - more than that will require a lot of backtracking and loops, which I despise, so I'm not sure I'll go there - but even so, this one was really tough. One of the steepest up hills was at around mile 9 (out of 10.4 or so) and I wouldn't have minded having a rope to help drag myself up. But I did it, so I'm happy, plus the Eagles won, the Phils won, and I squeezed in some quality study time, so I can't argue with the day on the whole.
Today was weights at the gym. I'm officially done my self-made workout block, and am considering what to do next. Assuming all goes as planned, I have about five weeks of workouts to do prior to the trail run, after which (after a short break!) I'll be starting Maximum Strength. I'm considering using the FBB stage 3 workouts, swapping out any exercises that also appear in the first stage of MS for something similar that doesn't. However I also like having one day a week where I'm giving legs a total break (and they seem to like it, too), so I may do FBB two days a week and a purely UB workout one day a week. I have until Friday to think about it, as I'm taking Wednesday as a rest day (Jury duty) and won't hit the gym again until Friday, but right now I like that plan.
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