I’ve taken to working on the Daily Cardinal crossword puzzles during ECE 342 (MWF) and ECE 551 (TR) recently. Why during class? Well, believe it or not, because it actually helps me learn better! I’m somewhat interested in both classes, and for ECE 342, I actually have a really good professor, but the material for both is awfully dry. If I try to just pay attention to the lecture, especially 551 power lectures, my attention wanders, there’s nothing to do, and so I fall asleep 🙁

On the other hand, when I bring the crossword puzzle along, I have something intellectually stimulating to do when the lecture gets too slow, so I stay awake 🙂

Plus it has the added benefit of increasing my knowledge, as opposed to my other stand-by: pulling out my laptop, which tends to just waste my time 😀

For instance, in the midst of discussing p-channel MOSFET differential amplifiers and improving their gain by means of a current mirror active load configuration, I learned this today:

Latin name for Troy

Ilium

Capital of Togo

Lome

Tea serving, in Britain

Cuppa <– wtf is that?

Cockamamy

Inane

I didn’t know any of those clues, but was able to fill in the cross words for all but Ilium. Two boxes there I had to look up, with a few more for a total of 4 today. Not bad.

And just for grins, here were this author’s “clever” clues:

Tasty zoo

Animal Crackers

Carrot patch, e.g.

Vegetable Garden

What a geologist makes at the bank?

Mineral Deposit

The sad part is that I actually got all three of those with only about 4 letters each, but I was stuck on “Rim holder” –> Backboard for like 20 minutes, when I had _ _ C K B _ A _ _.