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You’ve likely heard of the coin-tossing technique to help you make a decision. Pick one side of a coin to mean yes, you’ll do it, you’ll go through with the decision, and the other to mean no. Flip it. If the outcome makes you feel uneasy, or unhappy, it probably means you should do the opposite. The process helps you decipher your gut feeling on the matter.

The first three weeks of the term have passed. The first assignments have been handed out, and I’ve made fairly substantial progress on my yearlong project. I’m back into the swing of things. Still, when I stop thinking of all the work I have to do, I find myself wondering what the future holds for me. The idea of graduating is scary, but things are looking bright.

I mentioned a couple posts ago about applying to Microsoft. About a week after I made that post, I got an email from them inviting me for a phone (Skype) interview the following …

I’m back in Glasgow, and it’s only a few hours before my first class of the term. We had quite an adventure flying back, including having to stay overnight at a hotel near the airport in Schipol. But it all worked out in the end, with no additional costs for us, and no luggage was lost. Now that I’m back, it feels strange.

After spending that time back in Seattle, I realized more than ever before how homesick I am. I thought Glasgow might be the start of a life in the UK, but I’m not as taken with it …

The holidays have left me entirely too busy. It’s near impossible to get any work done for university when I’m trying to do things like baking cookies, buying gifts, and introducing my boyfriend to the Seattle area. We spent an epic weekend in Vancouver visiting friends, who I miss dearly. Then, a week getting accustomed to being back home (or being in a new country, for my boyfriend), preparing for Christmas, and getting small amounts of project work done. Now that Christmas is over, I have a couple more days with my mom before she flies home, and then a …

Last night was our first snowfall of the season. It’s continued today, just enough to make the roads slushy and dust the grass and rooftops with white. In the next couple days we might have a few more flurries, but not anything substantial. Nevertheless, it’s made me finally embrace the fact that winter is here.

I can never quite explain the excitement I feel when snow falls. It makes me want to go out and play in it, dance in it, touch it. It covers everything in a silent, sparkling white blanket. There’s something magical about it, something more than …

The end of my work this term is in sight. I’ve only got one more report to write, due Thursday, and a few odds and ends to finish. Stress has been intense this term, and I’m not one to easily shrug it off. I still managed to have a good 21st birthday celebration last week, in the middle of everything (I won’t really feel older until I got to America and realize I can go into–and drink in–bars). I’ve been eagerly awaiting Christmas break this term, as I have a lot to look forward to. It’s finally (almost) here.

After …

A chill has settled in the air. It’s not quite winter here in Scotland, but it’s certainly getting closer. After the time change recently, it’s dark by the time I walk home at night. I haven’t yet broken out my pea coat. Once it’s predicted to be very cold for a few consecutive days, I’ll consider it.

It’s also November. To me, that means NaNoWriMo (which I am honestly way too busy to participate in this year if I want to stay sane… maybe next year), Thanksgiving, my birthday, and impatiently waiting for the first snowfall. This year my birthday …

I’ve had absolutely no time to write. Despite this, I’ve been promising people I will write, in a gaming blog and a university-related computer science blog. I’ll post the links here when those start.

Otherwise, I’ve been swamped with coursework. For each of my 5 classes I have a project, and then I have an additional year-long project that isn’t associated with a class. They include a “smart” pac-man maze solver, an Android game that has elements in the real world, a visual Facebook-related Android app, and a few more that are both code-based and writing-based. In a lot of …

These days, I don’t listen to the radio. I’m not driving, I don’t own a physical radio, and I don’t bother going to websites of radio stations to listen. It’s just too easy to find the exact type of song you want to listen to on the web. But the one thing that I miss out on because of this is spoken radio: news stories, radio shows, the sort of thing my parents would play in the car on long drives.

The best radio station for this in America was (and still is) NPR, National Public Radio. When I …