So it's week two and the semester's already at full tilt. I pulled my first all-nighter of the semester Sunday night, and have been packed with work all week, and all the week to come.

It feels SO GOOD.

I learned a new word yesterday: eustress. I haven't found it in an online dictionary yet, but I'm going to check out the Oxford. Eustress is an opposite of 'distress.' In effect, eustress is 'good stress.' To me it feels like 'frenzy' but then I'm a sicko who likes frenzy. Anyhow, that's what I've been swimming in, and I like it.

Every single one of my classes is awesome. My teachers are fantastic, in contrast to a mix of brilliance and disappointment last semester. I'll write up my course listing in the next couple days, and will dive into detail on each of my classes later on, with syllibi and possibly even photos and video.

Right now, I just finished a simple maze program, representing my first foray into visual basic. It's a simple maze game for my Programming Usable Interfaces class. We were told to code something, anything, in Visual Basic. Don't even try to map the maze; it randomizes each time you turn. It's nothing special, but it's great to have the freedom of sitting down in a computer lab for a few hours, letting my imagination being my guide. Oh, and I wouldn't have called it 'impress.exe' except that was the sole constraint of the assignment.

For a (very, very slightly) more down-to-Earth example of what I've been doing the last few days, our first project in Game Design was to create a new game based off of hopscotch. The assignment was in three parts:

1. Brainstorm at least 50 ideas for hopscotch.
2. Pick three or more ideas, and write a paragraph or two exploring them.
3. Pick one, create a rule set, playtest it, document your findings, iterate the ruleset, playtest again, and document your findings.

I love this place. Wait'll you hear about our project for this week. I'll write that as soon as I finish my reading for tonight's classes.

I'll need your help. Get ready for some great nostalgia.