School's In

I made it up here okay on Sunday. I left home at about 12:30, made 2 stops along the way to get a coffee for the drive, and was at my friends place around 4:45. Not a bad haul considering the stops along the way. Traffic was almost nothing after I left the Lower Mainland and the mountain highway weather co-operated nicely, considering this is getting to be the time of year when the Coquihalla can become buried in feet of snow and shut down. It's comin, though. Looking forward to the drive home in 6 weeks.

Today was our first day in class. Mostly a set up day, get to know the other 15 guys in the class, go over safety, rules, books, course vectoring etc. That took up the first half of the class, and at lunch I went to the bookstore and grabbed the texts I needed that I didn't already have. $245 later, we went over what I was talking about before on basic electrical (atoms, electrons, neutrons, circuits etc) to refresh. The instructor we have is great, extremely knowledgeable, and personable. I had him for my level 2 class.We began the class with 2 tests; one on stuff we've already learned in previous years to see how well we're remembering that, and one on a myriad of electrical concepts to see how much we need to learn. I pass both, most people (so far as the mood seemed) didn't.

We were off at 3:30, and when I got back to home base I did my homework. 51 pages of reading plus 45 questions. No rest for the wicked, I guess. I try to do the reading and homework as soon as I get home, to keep what we did in class fresh in the mind and help hammer home the formulas and theory.

How do you guys study while at school? Any tips? What works for you? I'll end with a few pics from the drive.

 Leaving Chilliwack.

 Just outside of Hope.

 Oh good, the highway is open.

 On the Coquihalla.

 Just outside of Merritt.

 Entering Kamloops.

Success! In Kamloops.