Yesterday, the only thing I had to eat were four tuna fish patties. I have gone shopping today.
So I've been pretty damn excited for college this time around. I've started getting up at seven, instead of sleeping in till the last possible moment and being late for class because I insist on flossing and brushing and eating breakfast anyway. Furthermore, I'm trying to start drawing something every day as part of a sort of challenge between me and Arras. So far I'm not doing too well. I wanted to start up a biographical comic, but apparently my inability to quickly spit out a basic comic outline (i.e. what happens in what panel) has made me unable to draw comics in the time I'd like to. I am, however, drawing every day, and that makes me happy. Furthermore, I'm drawing in that little book Mum got me for Christmas, which also makes me happy.
It was, in fact, WHILE I was drawing in that little book, during one of the lulls in my calc 3 class, that I heard the instructor talking about a list of students that, for whatever reason, were deemed unsatisfactory for the pre-requirements for the course. I'm used to this, it happens at the beginning of almost every important class, and I was about to ignore it too, when I happened to look up and see my name sitting at the bottom of this very short list.
Like a jerk.
So apparently I don't satisfy the requirements for the course, which I suspect is due to my VERY low (BUT PASSING) grade for calc 2, last semester. Thing is, I know the material, I was just fantastically stupid last semester and got bad grades, but the confusing thing is that I thought I PASSED that class... So I've shot an e-mail off to the person you're supposed to shoot with e-mails, and I'm hoping she (he? they?) respond soon because I've got till the 14th before I get dropped from the class like a chip you pulled from the bag without looking only to find that it's covered in ants.
Also my tuition is late.
Also I still need to buy books.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year 2010-2011
From about 1 to 8 this morning, my friends and I played Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, one hit kill mode. I have not yet actually slept since I got up yesterday at ten.
Friends:
This New Year feels auspicious. My group of friends from AHS is, for lack of a better word, dissolving. This last year, some of us had graduated into college, and already it felt harder to get together and do things. This year even more of us have gone into college, and next year still more will. I remember days when I would see these people every day. We would go to school together,and play robots together. Now it's a scramble to try and meet up, and inevitably not everybody can make it. We're fragmenting. Still, I don't think for a second that we're not going to stick together. Thanks to the internet, we can talk almost no matter where we are. It's just a humbling realization that I used to see these people every single day...
Resolution:
For years, my only struggle with school has been with my organization. The only lesson that I need to learn, that I have fought against for years, is that I need to use my system. Every time I make a new system, it works very well. Things are good, and I get tired of maintaining it, so I stop. I think, I can do this, I've got this under control, but I don't. Every time I drop my system, I end up getting screwed. I did this last semester, and I almost failed most of my classes. This year, I want to learn this lesson once and for all. I want to use my system, and keep using it.
Lessons:
This semester, I learned how to study. I had honestly never studied before, and I only had a vague idea how it worked. I would try over-complicating it, making study-groups and finding excuses not to study when my plans didn't work out. After doing so terribly in all my classes, I realized that I needed desperately to score well on all my finals. To this end, I studied harder than I ever have before. I learned that the only way to study is to do it myself. Study-groups are useful in specific situations, but for studying, I'm better working alone.
Year's summary:
Second semester at WSU. Taking out GERs still. W00t-Stock was amazing. Got stuck in traffic on the way home and missed the first 30 minutes, but the rest was very worth it. Forgot that Kyle wanted to come. Probably shouldn't have rubbed it in his face. He stole my challenge coin to get back at me, with the condition that it would be returned when I got him to W00t-Stock the next year. I know he'll keep it safe, and I'll get him there next year. Wasted another summer. Didn't learn to drive, but got taught a great deal by Aunt Elaine. Going to have to focus on learning to drive next summer. Talked to Kobie Boykins about NASA internships. This is probably the next step for me if I want to build exploratory robots. Need to finish this, but I still havent. I missed the deadline for the spring intern session, which I guess is just as well. Gotta finish this in time for this summer's deadline, because there are apparently a ton of open positions. I'm actually pretty confident in my resume, which is a change. I hate writing answers for the essay questions. Went to Steamcon 2 with Arras, Cole, Kenneth and Kenneth's posse. It was simply amazing. Always remember the Rise of Aester LARP games and Sir Jim Mangewood. Got a ton of steampunk stuff for Christmas. I guess this is officially a thing for us now. How did it take this long? I miss the friends that I no longer talk to, like Miles and Andrew. I could try reconnecting with them, but it wouldn't feel natural to me. There are just some relationships that I simply cannot maintain without seeing the person regularly, and I think this is just a part of myself I need to accept. I've stopped playing games, and started focusing on projects more. This is a good trend and I need to keep working on it. I can do some amazing things if I simply choose to work on them instead of reading web-comics. That said, don't underestimate the value of mindless fun.
Books I need to read:
Roadside Picnic
Dune
the Behemoth series (I think that's the wrong name but whatever)
House of Leaves
Skills I need to pick up:
Unix
Projects I'm working on:
GURPS Dr. Grordbort-style Steampunk mod
GURPS Island survival mod
DnD Spider-People campaign
DnD Epic Trap Dungeon
Mum's imitation Book-Book
Mum's cane
Arduino USB Midi-Guitar
Superhero Robots
Friends:
This New Year feels auspicious. My group of friends from AHS is, for lack of a better word, dissolving. This last year, some of us had graduated into college, and already it felt harder to get together and do things. This year even more of us have gone into college, and next year still more will. I remember days when I would see these people every day. We would go to school together,and play robots together. Now it's a scramble to try and meet up, and inevitably not everybody can make it. We're fragmenting. Still, I don't think for a second that we're not going to stick together. Thanks to the internet, we can talk almost no matter where we are. It's just a humbling realization that I used to see these people every single day...
Resolution:
For years, my only struggle with school has been with my organization. The only lesson that I need to learn, that I have fought against for years, is that I need to use my system. Every time I make a new system, it works very well. Things are good, and I get tired of maintaining it, so I stop. I think, I can do this, I've got this under control, but I don't. Every time I drop my system, I end up getting screwed. I did this last semester, and I almost failed most of my classes. This year, I want to learn this lesson once and for all. I want to use my system, and keep using it.
Lessons:
This semester, I learned how to study. I had honestly never studied before, and I only had a vague idea how it worked. I would try over-complicating it, making study-groups and finding excuses not to study when my plans didn't work out. After doing so terribly in all my classes, I realized that I needed desperately to score well on all my finals. To this end, I studied harder than I ever have before. I learned that the only way to study is to do it myself. Study-groups are useful in specific situations, but for studying, I'm better working alone.
Year's summary:
Second semester at WSU. Taking out GERs still. W00t-Stock was amazing. Got stuck in traffic on the way home and missed the first 30 minutes, but the rest was very worth it. Forgot that Kyle wanted to come. Probably shouldn't have rubbed it in his face. He stole my challenge coin to get back at me, with the condition that it would be returned when I got him to W00t-Stock the next year. I know he'll keep it safe, and I'll get him there next year. Wasted another summer. Didn't learn to drive, but got taught a great deal by Aunt Elaine. Going to have to focus on learning to drive next summer. Talked to Kobie Boykins about NASA internships. This is probably the next step for me if I want to build exploratory robots. Need to finish this, but I still havent. I missed the deadline for the spring intern session, which I guess is just as well. Gotta finish this in time for this summer's deadline, because there are apparently a ton of open positions. I'm actually pretty confident in my resume, which is a change. I hate writing answers for the essay questions. Went to Steamcon 2 with Arras, Cole, Kenneth and Kenneth's posse. It was simply amazing. Always remember the Rise of Aester LARP games and Sir Jim Mangewood. Got a ton of steampunk stuff for Christmas. I guess this is officially a thing for us now. How did it take this long? I miss the friends that I no longer talk to, like Miles and Andrew. I could try reconnecting with them, but it wouldn't feel natural to me. There are just some relationships that I simply cannot maintain without seeing the person regularly, and I think this is just a part of myself I need to accept. I've stopped playing games, and started focusing on projects more. This is a good trend and I need to keep working on it. I can do some amazing things if I simply choose to work on them instead of reading web-comics. That said, don't underestimate the value of mindless fun.
Books I need to read:
Roadside Picnic
Dune
the Behemoth series (I think that's the wrong name but whatever)
House of Leaves
Skills I need to pick up:
Unix
Projects I'm working on:
GURPS Dr. Grordbort-style Steampunk mod
GURPS Island survival mod
DnD Spider-People campaign
DnD Epic Trap Dungeon
Mum's imitation Book-Book
Mum's cane
Arduino USB Midi-Guitar
Superhero Robots
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Finals Week Update
So the hour right before I have my linear algebra final (Math 220), I needed to stop by the last EWB meeting of the semester so as I could talk to them about the latest design of this thing I'm working on for them (more about that later). The meeting goes quick, and I even pick up a friend who's in my 220 class and take him back to the Honor's dorm to help him study (which is what Cole and I were doing for the past six hours). Unbeknown to me, the EWB was having a free pizza meeting to encourage people to come to the last meeting (when they would otherwise be studying their asses off or more likely relaxing their asses off). Not many people came to the meeting, so there was lots of pizza left over. I wasn't very hungry (I had eaten, and lately I've felt sick every time I have), but I took the pizzas off their hands. I figured that if anybody at honors wanted some, they would appreciate it, and if not we could always give them out at the exam. Well we studied hard for the last half hour before the test, and rushed out the door, completely forgetting the pizzas. The test went well (more on that later), and when we came back, we found some of the Honor's Hall study room regulars lying on the floor, eating the pizzas. One of them looked at Cole and said "we ate some of the pizza. I hope you don't mind." I chimed in, and told them that was kinda what it was there for, and apologized for not putting a FREE sign on it or something. Another (without pizza), perked up. "We can eat those? I'm getting a slice!" and jumped up to do just that. I left about twenty minutes later, and the pizzas were almost finished.
I've been spending a fare amount of time in Honor's Hall, studying in the study room on Arras' floor along with Cole (Arras' presence is implied). These folks are pretty cool dudes and doesn't afraid of anything'n'stuff.
(more about pump)
So for the EWB, I've been working on the design and CAD drawings for a frame to mount the linear actuator to for our failure test. Basically, we're setting the hand pump up with some sort of resisty-pumpy-loop-thing and rigging a linear actuator to pump it non-stop till it starts to break. The frame needs to mount the actuator at a specific distance from the mount point on the pump handle (the sweet spot between the actuator's maximum and minimum reach), it needs to not be the part that breaks, and it needs to be movable so we can test different pumping angles (which will put more or less pressure on the pump's fulcrum). I spun my wheels for the last couple of months on this project, and last Friday I finally just went and talked to Miles, who runs the machine shop that we pay to fabricate all our parts. Well I talked to him for about ten minutes, and he already came up with the best design. Period.
At this point I'm feeling stupid for not talking to this guy in the first place, but regardless, my job is now to get him a CAD drawing of the main piece for the actuator frame, and he planned to weld it to the pump's frame after he milled it out. That said, I needed to talk to the rest of the EWB before approving this thing to be welded, which turned out to be a good call, as the team decided that we really want to try avoiding any permanent modifications to the pump frame. Right now, the plan stays the same, but I still need to finish the CAD drawing, get it to Miles and talk to him about building it to bolt to the frame instead of welding it. On top of this, I need to study for the chem and Japanese finals, and I'm leaving this Thursday.
(more about 220)
220 went amazingly well. I was paranoid (rightly so), after not doing so well on the calc final (more on that later), so I met up with Cole around noon, and we studied straight until 7, when we packed up and hiked over to the final. Again, it went amazingly well. It went so well, in fact, that I spend about an hour after finishing the exam, doodling on all the exam pages. This wasn't ENTIRELY useless, as for each doodle I did, I checked over the math on that page, which turned up more than a few mistakes. Even after spending more time doodling than I did actually working, I still left the exam room with plenty of time to spare. I was waiting for Cole to finish so I could get back into Honors to get at some of the pizza there (I was a little hungry by that time). While we were walking back, I told him this, and he pointed out that I could have just called Arras. I conceded this, but retorted that it had given me a chance to doodle all over the exam. He gave me a pained look, as he had spent the entire time reworking this one problem that was a little more irritating than the rest. I had just powered through it, and found that it came out well in the end, but he had tried simplifying the problem and gotten bitten. Still, he and I are both confident that we passed with super-A's. As far as my friend from the EWB, we left before he was done. I hope my quick tutoring helped him some.
(more about calc 172)
The Calc 172 exam was easy. There were a few problems that gave me trouble, but I feel like I managed to solve them well enough. The problem came from issues I had where I should have had any. The last section of 172 was on vectors, which should have dovetailed nicely with my 220 class, but didn't (for reasons I won't go into here). I had fanatically studied everything up to this section on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and was completely stumped when it came to it. It was aggravating to no end, because I KNEW the problems were not hard at all! But only if you knew the key facts about the problem. This, of course, put me in a sour mood afterward, and looking for something to take my mind off the test, I ended up calling Reily, and we hung out a bit. This test is one of the main reasons why I'm working so hard to prepare for the upcoming tests, and thankfully I'm pretty confident that I'll do well in my last two tests (chem and Japanese). Additionally, one of the only reasons why I have the will power to stay up and study Japanese tonight (just previously I went over a quick review with Colin, my IT/ChemE friend) is because I did so very well on the 220 final.
(japn oral)
Because I'm reporting on finals in its entirety, and I don't think I've posted about the Japanese oral exam I had this last Friday, I figure I'll talk about that here. Essentially, the class was 'randomly' paired up, and each pair had to come up with a skit in Japanese for two different situations (talking about their vacation on the way to the post office, or a job interview). Both these skits had to be memorized, and one would be picked randomly to be presented. I think that's a little extreme, but whatever. I put "randomly" in small quotes earlier, because I managed to pick my partner because the partner I had randomly picked was absent, as was my friend Ian's. We asked the teacher if we could pair up, and she agreed. Ian and I proceeded to make up the most bizarre set of skits we could, using just the words we had already learned (plus as many as we were allowed to look up). The first skit (the vacation) was amazing, and while the second skit was good, it wasn't nearly as fun as the first one. Sadly, our second skit was chosen, and we performed that to the best of our ability. Ian was perfect, I however didn't do as well. I didn't do terribly, but I didn't do as well as I could have. Still, I'm confident I've passed the class, which is honestly my main concern right now.
(current studies)
Currently I'm procrastinating. I need to review all my Japanese flash cards so I don't make a fool of myself on the written exam, but I also wanted to make a blog post for finals week while I'm still riding the high from my last exam. Earlier I stormed through last Fall's chem 105 exam with Collin, which oddly enough was the very final that HE had to take. Based off THAT I'm ery confident, but I just know that chem is going to find some way to screw me over. An hour after my chem exam, I've got my Japanese written exam, and even after that I've still got to finish the CAD drawing for the EWB and get it in to Miles before I leave.
OH! As one extra bit of news (and in order to complete my review of all my classes), my M E 116 (CAD) class finished up this last Friday with our final project. I had paired up with Thor, who is competent, but a bit lazy. It seems to me that he's more of a comp sci guy (which is his other major) than an M E guy, but still a VERY good partner. We also kinda picked up a girl named Lee, who seemed kind of along for the ride for the most part. She was very introverted, but she worked hard, and actually contributed more to the team than I did. That sounds bad, but it's true, just not the whole story. When Thor approached me, or maybe I approached him, he was thinking about modeling a trebuchet. I suggested that we do a mechanical calculator, and we started off on that. We spent a couple days spinning our wheels and doing research to see if we could actually pull this off, and decided that if we WERE going to try for this, we would need a simple, backup project that we could use in case it fell through, which it did. This backup project was a programmable music box that Thor found. Basically it's the same as any music box, only you can remove and replace pins depending on the tune you wanted to play, and the musical times were all adjustable. Furthermore, and this is the cooler part in my opinion, it was designed to be made by an amature carpenter. We even managed to improve the design by replacing a special set of belt and cog wheels that had to be bought, with wooden gears that could be fabricated. In the end I was really impressed by the results, and I made certain to keep a copy of everybody's files just in case I ever decided to make a version of the thing myself. THAT SAID, I need to tell you why I didn't do as much on this project as everybody else. While Thor and Lee worked on the machine proper, I immersed myself in US patents describing the mechanics of an INCREDIBLE mechanical calculator known as a CURTA (also a Pepper Grinder, for it's unique shape and opperation). After a few days of research, I understood the thing entirely, and I still feel that we could have modeled it, if we didn't have only two viable work days left. With this, I decided to scrap the project entirely, and went to work on the music box, which was mostly finished. But don't think I didn't contribute. For the barrel of the music box, Thor had just extruded a cylinder of wood about 10" in diameter. This doesn't work in the real world, and the instructions for the music box had the cylinder made up of eight pieces glued together. So I work to fabricate this. Furthermore, the Thor had just cut into the extruded cylinder to make the gear on the barrel, so they were essentially one piece. I cut mine out of a sheet of wood, the way an actual wooden gear would be made, and attached it to the side of the barrel. I'm not trying to deride Thor, as he DID build most of the rest of the music box, including the crank and gear that drove the barrel (Lee built the rack that the tines were mounted to, which was in turn mounted to the box), but I'm MUCH happier that the whole music box model represents something that could be constructed in the real world.
So them's finals. For once I think I'm really experiencing the stress associated with finals, where as I had previously only done the bare minimum and taken what I got. I'm feeling good about this.
I've been spending a fare amount of time in Honor's Hall, studying in the study room on Arras' floor along with Cole (Arras' presence is implied). These folks are pretty cool dudes and doesn't afraid of anything'n'stuff.
(more about pump)
So for the EWB, I've been working on the design and CAD drawings for a frame to mount the linear actuator to for our failure test. Basically, we're setting the hand pump up with some sort of resisty-pumpy-loop-thing and rigging a linear actuator to pump it non-stop till it starts to break. The frame needs to mount the actuator at a specific distance from the mount point on the pump handle (the sweet spot between the actuator's maximum and minimum reach), it needs to not be the part that breaks, and it needs to be movable so we can test different pumping angles (which will put more or less pressure on the pump's fulcrum). I spun my wheels for the last couple of months on this project, and last Friday I finally just went and talked to Miles, who runs the machine shop that we pay to fabricate all our parts. Well I talked to him for about ten minutes, and he already came up with the best design. Period.
At this point I'm feeling stupid for not talking to this guy in the first place, but regardless, my job is now to get him a CAD drawing of the main piece for the actuator frame, and he planned to weld it to the pump's frame after he milled it out. That said, I needed to talk to the rest of the EWB before approving this thing to be welded, which turned out to be a good call, as the team decided that we really want to try avoiding any permanent modifications to the pump frame. Right now, the plan stays the same, but I still need to finish the CAD drawing, get it to Miles and talk to him about building it to bolt to the frame instead of welding it. On top of this, I need to study for the chem and Japanese finals, and I'm leaving this Thursday.
(more about 220)
220 went amazingly well. I was paranoid (rightly so), after not doing so well on the calc final (more on that later), so I met up with Cole around noon, and we studied straight until 7, when we packed up and hiked over to the final. Again, it went amazingly well. It went so well, in fact, that I spend about an hour after finishing the exam, doodling on all the exam pages. This wasn't ENTIRELY useless, as for each doodle I did, I checked over the math on that page, which turned up more than a few mistakes. Even after spending more time doodling than I did actually working, I still left the exam room with plenty of time to spare. I was waiting for Cole to finish so I could get back into Honors to get at some of the pizza there (I was a little hungry by that time). While we were walking back, I told him this, and he pointed out that I could have just called Arras. I conceded this, but retorted that it had given me a chance to doodle all over the exam. He gave me a pained look, as he had spent the entire time reworking this one problem that was a little more irritating than the rest. I had just powered through it, and found that it came out well in the end, but he had tried simplifying the problem and gotten bitten. Still, he and I are both confident that we passed with super-A's. As far as my friend from the EWB, we left before he was done. I hope my quick tutoring helped him some.
(more about calc 172)
The Calc 172 exam was easy. There were a few problems that gave me trouble, but I feel like I managed to solve them well enough. The problem came from issues I had where I should have had any. The last section of 172 was on vectors, which should have dovetailed nicely with my 220 class, but didn't (for reasons I won't go into here). I had fanatically studied everything up to this section on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, and was completely stumped when it came to it. It was aggravating to no end, because I KNEW the problems were not hard at all! But only if you knew the key facts about the problem. This, of course, put me in a sour mood afterward, and looking for something to take my mind off the test, I ended up calling Reily, and we hung out a bit. This test is one of the main reasons why I'm working so hard to prepare for the upcoming tests, and thankfully I'm pretty confident that I'll do well in my last two tests (chem and Japanese). Additionally, one of the only reasons why I have the will power to stay up and study Japanese tonight (just previously I went over a quick review with Colin, my IT/ChemE friend) is because I did so very well on the 220 final.
(japn oral)
Because I'm reporting on finals in its entirety, and I don't think I've posted about the Japanese oral exam I had this last Friday, I figure I'll talk about that here. Essentially, the class was 'randomly' paired up, and each pair had to come up with a skit in Japanese for two different situations (talking about their vacation on the way to the post office, or a job interview). Both these skits had to be memorized, and one would be picked randomly to be presented. I think that's a little extreme, but whatever. I put "randomly" in small quotes earlier, because I managed to pick my partner because the partner I had randomly picked was absent, as was my friend Ian's. We asked the teacher if we could pair up, and she agreed. Ian and I proceeded to make up the most bizarre set of skits we could, using just the words we had already learned (plus as many as we were allowed to look up). The first skit (the vacation) was amazing, and while the second skit was good, it wasn't nearly as fun as the first one. Sadly, our second skit was chosen, and we performed that to the best of our ability. Ian was perfect, I however didn't do as well. I didn't do terribly, but I didn't do as well as I could have. Still, I'm confident I've passed the class, which is honestly my main concern right now.
(current studies)
Currently I'm procrastinating. I need to review all my Japanese flash cards so I don't make a fool of myself on the written exam, but I also wanted to make a blog post for finals week while I'm still riding the high from my last exam. Earlier I stormed through last Fall's chem 105 exam with Collin, which oddly enough was the very final that HE had to take. Based off THAT I'm ery confident, but I just know that chem is going to find some way to screw me over. An hour after my chem exam, I've got my Japanese written exam, and even after that I've still got to finish the CAD drawing for the EWB and get it in to Miles before I leave.
OH! As one extra bit of news (and in order to complete my review of all my classes), my M E 116 (CAD) class finished up this last Friday with our final project. I had paired up with Thor, who is competent, but a bit lazy. It seems to me that he's more of a comp sci guy (which is his other major) than an M E guy, but still a VERY good partner. We also kinda picked up a girl named Lee, who seemed kind of along for the ride for the most part. She was very introverted, but she worked hard, and actually contributed more to the team than I did. That sounds bad, but it's true, just not the whole story. When Thor approached me, or maybe I approached him, he was thinking about modeling a trebuchet. I suggested that we do a mechanical calculator, and we started off on that. We spent a couple days spinning our wheels and doing research to see if we could actually pull this off, and decided that if we WERE going to try for this, we would need a simple, backup project that we could use in case it fell through, which it did. This backup project was a programmable music box that Thor found. Basically it's the same as any music box, only you can remove and replace pins depending on the tune you wanted to play, and the musical times were all adjustable. Furthermore, and this is the cooler part in my opinion, it was designed to be made by an amature carpenter. We even managed to improve the design by replacing a special set of belt and cog wheels that had to be bought, with wooden gears that could be fabricated. In the end I was really impressed by the results, and I made certain to keep a copy of everybody's files just in case I ever decided to make a version of the thing myself. THAT SAID, I need to tell you why I didn't do as much on this project as everybody else. While Thor and Lee worked on the machine proper, I immersed myself in US patents describing the mechanics of an INCREDIBLE mechanical calculator known as a CURTA (also a Pepper Grinder, for it's unique shape and opperation). After a few days of research, I understood the thing entirely, and I still feel that we could have modeled it, if we didn't have only two viable work days left. With this, I decided to scrap the project entirely, and went to work on the music box, which was mostly finished. But don't think I didn't contribute. For the barrel of the music box, Thor had just extruded a cylinder of wood about 10" in diameter. This doesn't work in the real world, and the instructions for the music box had the cylinder made up of eight pieces glued together. So I work to fabricate this. Furthermore, the Thor had just cut into the extruded cylinder to make the gear on the barrel, so they were essentially one piece. I cut mine out of a sheet of wood, the way an actual wooden gear would be made, and attached it to the side of the barrel. I'm not trying to deride Thor, as he DID build most of the rest of the music box, including the crank and gear that drove the barrel (Lee built the rack that the tines were mounted to, which was in turn mounted to the box), but I'm MUCH happier that the whole music box model represents something that could be constructed in the real world.
So them's finals. For once I think I'm really experiencing the stress associated with finals, where as I had previously only done the bare minimum and taken what I got. I'm feeling good about this.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Pre-break update
My Japanese oral exam is tomorrow. For my vacation I went to the Sky Castle and met Jeff Bridges. Every morning we would eat a lot of meat and go to the top of a mountain and sing. It was very fun. My partner held a party in his pants and everybody came, so now his house is not clean. It's going to be an interesting test.
So I'm officially paying for my own food in full now. Clinton and I have decided that we're not really cooking group meals, because whenever he cooks I'm never around, and whenever I cook (rare as it is), he's never around and never eats what I cook. It's a little sad that we've failed in this capacity, but it would be foolish to ignore the problem and keep going as is. Really it's going to be a relief that I won't have to worry about shopping for what he likes, and he won't have to deal with my preference for more expensive foods.
I've recently had to admit that I'm not a good cook. Tuesday I cooked some yellow chicken curry with pineapple. I managed to make something delicious, and completely over-spice it in the last ten minutes like an idiot. That said, it's still really tasty. The curry, however, is not the problem. The rice is the problem. I cannot cook rice. for whatever reason, it either burns, or gets undercooked, or overcooked, or a bizarre combination of all three. The curry is pretty good, but the rice is so bad that it makes the curry taste worse. Sadly I hate to waste food, so I'm going to munch on it until it's gone (hopefully before I leave for home). OH! It's also currently being stored in a Redvines container because all our tupperware has disappeared (most likely into Clinton's room, or Cara's apartment).
EWB is... interesting. I've experienced how a group like this should be run thanks to Skunkworks, and this is significantly different. It's like being back on the Chief Sealth team. Everything is lackluster and lethargic. Even contributing personal effort yields sub-par results, as it is difficult to get an equally enthusiastic input. I feel that Skunkworks could have done in a week what these folks did in a semester. THAT SAID, I wonder if I would be able to change anything even given a position of power. I had the opportunity earlier this week when we held elections for the various club offices, and I decided not to run for any of them. I'm currently, unofficially in charge of the HPPV, and things really aren't very much better. I don't think I can really critique these clubs for being less professional than Skunkworks, because a) Skunkworks is kinda amazing and that'd be unfair to these clubs, and b) in college I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to contribute as much as I did in high school.
So I'm officially paying for my own food in full now. Clinton and I have decided that we're not really cooking group meals, because whenever he cooks I'm never around, and whenever I cook (rare as it is), he's never around and never eats what I cook. It's a little sad that we've failed in this capacity, but it would be foolish to ignore the problem and keep going as is. Really it's going to be a relief that I won't have to worry about shopping for what he likes, and he won't have to deal with my preference for more expensive foods.
I've recently had to admit that I'm not a good cook. Tuesday I cooked some yellow chicken curry with pineapple. I managed to make something delicious, and completely over-spice it in the last ten minutes like an idiot. That said, it's still really tasty. The curry, however, is not the problem. The rice is the problem. I cannot cook rice. for whatever reason, it either burns, or gets undercooked, or overcooked, or a bizarre combination of all three. The curry is pretty good, but the rice is so bad that it makes the curry taste worse. Sadly I hate to waste food, so I'm going to munch on it until it's gone (hopefully before I leave for home). OH! It's also currently being stored in a Redvines container because all our tupperware has disappeared (most likely into Clinton's room, or Cara's apartment).
EWB is... interesting. I've experienced how a group like this should be run thanks to Skunkworks, and this is significantly different. It's like being back on the Chief Sealth team. Everything is lackluster and lethargic. Even contributing personal effort yields sub-par results, as it is difficult to get an equally enthusiastic input. I feel that Skunkworks could have done in a week what these folks did in a semester. THAT SAID, I wonder if I would be able to change anything even given a position of power. I had the opportunity earlier this week when we held elections for the various club offices, and I decided not to run for any of them. I'm currently, unofficially in charge of the HPPV, and things really aren't very much better. I don't think I can really critique these clubs for being less professional than Skunkworks, because a) Skunkworks is kinda amazing and that'd be unfair to these clubs, and b) in college I'm finding it surprisingly difficult to contribute as much as I did in high school.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Developments
Yesterday, while trudging through the snow, I decided I was going to make a dragon. So I called up my friend, told him I'd be making it outside his dorm, and he joined in. It looks pretty cool even after its head fell off...
So status quo is maintained, school is still in a state of disarray and hanging by a thread due to my won stupidity. Thankfully I know exactly what went wrong this semester, and I can fix it easily next semester. However the continuing, every day irritation that comes with know exactly how and why you f--ked up has become an almost constant backdrop to all my activities. This, combined with Steamcon, and planning for next year, has led to an interesting change in my everyday machinations. I've been playing with my tablet more and more recently, and leaning heavilly towards right-brained activities in my free time, instead of simply seeking mindless, instant gratification. I haven't completed any drawings to decent completion, but I've been exploring inking, coloring and especially shading techniques using color. At some point I'd really like to start drawing regularly, but we'll see how that goes.
School has no changes as of current. The classes I've been worried about are still a concern, and I'm going to study face until I bleed during this next week so I can be totally prepared for the finals.
The ASME is trudging along, but I'll admit that it's another source of stress for me. We currently have no budget. Everything we've gotten so far has been out of our own pockets, and while I believe this is money well spent, I cannot help but feel agitated that the REASON we have no funding is because everybody simply forgot to go to the funding meeting... I'm doing incredibly cool things, but I'm afraid that we're wasting our time a money by not having the cash to actually finish this thing, and that we're leading the cart before the horse. When I joined late last year, the bike had already been designed and we in the process of being built. We're still building that same bike, mainly making up for setbacks that came when we were ejected from our previous workspace and moved into a temporary space (we lost some key bike parts, as well as the molds for making said bike parts). The material we're using is simply amazing. It's incredibly strong and practically rubber (you can bend it a great deal before it deforms predominantly, let alone breaks), and exploring this stuff's capabilities is half the fun. However, I learned this year, that our bike is fundamentally flawed, in that sitting on it causes the wheels to bend. They can hold our weight easily, they just bend in half when they do. Furthermore, I've found out that our bike design was based off an arbitrary concept bike that looked cool, and not on any actual engineering concepts. We should have done our material testing before building the bike, but I wasn't a part of that. Right now I can only fix whatever problems come up and plan for next year, but doing that on my own budget is more than a little worrisome...
So status quo is maintained, school is still in a state of disarray and hanging by a thread due to my won stupidity. Thankfully I know exactly what went wrong this semester, and I can fix it easily next semester. However the continuing, every day irritation that comes with know exactly how and why you f--ked up has become an almost constant backdrop to all my activities. This, combined with Steamcon, and planning for next year, has led to an interesting change in my everyday machinations. I've been playing with my tablet more and more recently, and leaning heavilly towards right-brained activities in my free time, instead of simply seeking mindless, instant gratification. I haven't completed any drawings to decent completion, but I've been exploring inking, coloring and especially shading techniques using color. At some point I'd really like to start drawing regularly, but we'll see how that goes.
School has no changes as of current. The classes I've been worried about are still a concern, and I'm going to study face until I bleed during this next week so I can be totally prepared for the finals.
The ASME is trudging along, but I'll admit that it's another source of stress for me. We currently have no budget. Everything we've gotten so far has been out of our own pockets, and while I believe this is money well spent, I cannot help but feel agitated that the REASON we have no funding is because everybody simply forgot to go to the funding meeting... I'm doing incredibly cool things, but I'm afraid that we're wasting our time a money by not having the cash to actually finish this thing, and that we're leading the cart before the horse. When I joined late last year, the bike had already been designed and we in the process of being built. We're still building that same bike, mainly making up for setbacks that came when we were ejected from our previous workspace and moved into a temporary space (we lost some key bike parts, as well as the molds for making said bike parts). The material we're using is simply amazing. It's incredibly strong and practically rubber (you can bend it a great deal before it deforms predominantly, let alone breaks), and exploring this stuff's capabilities is half the fun. However, I learned this year, that our bike is fundamentally flawed, in that sitting on it causes the wheels to bend. They can hold our weight easily, they just bend in half when they do. Furthermore, I've found out that our bike design was based off an arbitrary concept bike that looked cool, and not on any actual engineering concepts. We should have done our material testing before building the bike, but I wasn't a part of that. Right now I can only fix whatever problems come up and plan for next year, but doing that on my own budget is more than a little worrisome...
Monday, November 15, 2010
Self Inflicted Problems
As a joke, my prop for Steam-Con is going to be a steam powered wrench. As in a giant combination wrench (the non-adjustable type of wrench), to subtly poke fun at how many of these things we make and wear do not, in any way, need to be steam-powered. I'm working with the help of a gentleman-pirate that two of my friends know (they're also getting help on their props from this man), and during the course of figuring out how to build this wrench, I drew it on his workshop chalkboard. Because of this, he has come up with a plan and a design for an actual steam powered wrench that he wishes to design and build that has practical use (though certainly not over-sized like mine). He is ruining the joke in the most awesome way.
The school is doing two things that are screwing me up. They're screwing me up for reasons that are ENTIRELY my own damn fault, but they're screwing up up nonetheless, and in the stupidest way possible.
Good intention number one: We want every student to have a guide to help them take the classes that they need to graduate in the shortest time possible because that's what they want and that makes us look good.
Fantastically stupid method of enacting this intention: Advisers for every student (a very good idea), with advising holds to prevent the students from signing up for classes before talking to their adviser (a fantastic way of screwing this up).
How I am screwing myself over because of this: I fantastically suck at doing things outside of some specific routine. Hell, I suck at just maintaining a routine. Furthermore, for some reason, my adviser insists on students coming to his door and signing up for an advising time on a sheet of paper posted there, instead of via e-mail. I must say, this is not unreasonable. Any functioning person should have no problem doing this. There WAS a time before electronic communication, where stuff like this was the norm. That said, it seems completely impossible for my brain to wrap itself around the concept, and as with previous years I have completely failed to sign up until too late. He's taken the paper down. So ONCE AGAIN I must contact him and beg for a bit of his time. This usually means he ends up rushing me through a session, telling me the same thing that I can get off a piece of paper I have in my room, and ultimately not helping me in the slightest. Every time this time of year rolls around I swear that I'll sign up on time, get a timely advising session out of him, and get actual help on stuff I need to know about. Like how to double major.
Good intention number two: We want every student to be proficient at writing persuasively and arguing their point.
Fantastically stupid method of enacting this intention: You are not allowed to become a junior until completing a writing portfolio and having it pass some sort of grading.
How I am screwing myself over because of this: I took my English 101 class in my first semester, freshman year. At the end of my second semester (the spring semester), during or close to finals week, my English 101 teacher informed everybody that she was transferring to UW, and if we wanted to get anything signed by her for the portfolio, we should do it now. I was sick and tired of class in general, let alone her class which was ridiculously harsh (possibly to her credit, possibly to her detriment), and I didn't get anything signed. I also didn't (and don't) think any of my papers were good enough to USE in the portfolio. So I currently have exactly nothing to put into a portfolio that's due at the end of my next semester. My solution? I'm going to take a TON of writing based classes next semester. Having almost completely ignored my adviser's advice for the past two sessions, I don't think he's going to be too keen on this course of action. That said, I don't think he keeps track of my classes from year to year in the slightest.
So that's where I am right now. Steam-Con will be awesome, and I'll forget my troubles there, but EVERY SINGLE TIME something like this comes up, I realize I've screwed myself over far too late and I curse my own stupidity for not being more paranoid. This has been going on for years and it's only getting worse, despite the advise and support of literally everybody I know.
The school is doing two things that are screwing me up. They're screwing me up for reasons that are ENTIRELY my own damn fault, but they're screwing up up nonetheless, and in the stupidest way possible.
Good intention number one: We want every student to have a guide to help them take the classes that they need to graduate in the shortest time possible because that's what they want and that makes us look good.
Fantastically stupid method of enacting this intention: Advisers for every student (a very good idea), with advising holds to prevent the students from signing up for classes before talking to their adviser (a fantastic way of screwing this up).
How I am screwing myself over because of this: I fantastically suck at doing things outside of some specific routine. Hell, I suck at just maintaining a routine. Furthermore, for some reason, my adviser insists on students coming to his door and signing up for an advising time on a sheet of paper posted there, instead of via e-mail. I must say, this is not unreasonable. Any functioning person should have no problem doing this. There WAS a time before electronic communication, where stuff like this was the norm. That said, it seems completely impossible for my brain to wrap itself around the concept, and as with previous years I have completely failed to sign up until too late. He's taken the paper down. So ONCE AGAIN I must contact him and beg for a bit of his time. This usually means he ends up rushing me through a session, telling me the same thing that I can get off a piece of paper I have in my room, and ultimately not helping me in the slightest. Every time this time of year rolls around I swear that I'll sign up on time, get a timely advising session out of him, and get actual help on stuff I need to know about. Like how to double major.
Good intention number two: We want every student to be proficient at writing persuasively and arguing their point.
Fantastically stupid method of enacting this intention: You are not allowed to become a junior until completing a writing portfolio and having it pass some sort of grading.
How I am screwing myself over because of this: I took my English 101 class in my first semester, freshman year. At the end of my second semester (the spring semester), during or close to finals week, my English 101 teacher informed everybody that she was transferring to UW, and if we wanted to get anything signed by her for the portfolio, we should do it now. I was sick and tired of class in general, let alone her class which was ridiculously harsh (possibly to her credit, possibly to her detriment), and I didn't get anything signed. I also didn't (and don't) think any of my papers were good enough to USE in the portfolio. So I currently have exactly nothing to put into a portfolio that's due at the end of my next semester. My solution? I'm going to take a TON of writing based classes next semester. Having almost completely ignored my adviser's advice for the past two sessions, I don't think he's going to be too keen on this course of action. That said, I don't think he keeps track of my classes from year to year in the slightest.
So that's where I am right now. Steam-Con will be awesome, and I'll forget my troubles there, but EVERY SINGLE TIME something like this comes up, I realize I've screwed myself over far too late and I curse my own stupidity for not being more paranoid. This has been going on for years and it's only getting worse, despite the advise and support of literally everybody I know.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Deal
High above in his impeccable tower of steel and glass sat a man wreathed in shadow at the end of a long dark table in a room of great importance, his head in his hands. Desperately he scanned the numbers on the papers around him, streams of data that may have well been raging rivers to drown him.
The click, clack of the visitor's shoes broke the silence like bad news. If the door had opened, the light from the hallway would have streamed into the room, perhaps lighting upon some simple miracle to save this man, but that would have been too simple.
"Not yet," the visitor thought.
"Having fun are we?" it spoke. The ragged man's head lifted from it's torment just enough to give an acid glare at the visitor.
"I'll take that as a no then," it said, and smiled. "I know I'm supposed to enjoy the subtleties of torment, but even after so long, I do love watching such a complete failure in His design as you."
"This was YOUR doing! GOD DAMN IT DON'T PLAY COY!"
"Haha," it laughed. "No I had nothing to do with it. I'll be honest, and don't take that lightly.
"I never once made plans against you. I honored our deal with no ill designs, no tricks, no loopholes or devious devices. I went out of my way to help you. Know that. No you are perhaps the only human being to ever receive my true blessing and honest help, and you are such a complete and total failure that you STILL manage to fuck it all to.. hell." It chuckled at that last addition.
The ragged man's rage died down quickly, and he settled painfully back into his chair.
"So what now?" he asked. The visitor simply leaned on glass wall of the window and stared dreamily over the city.
"This it?" he prompted, but silence settled in again.
"You here to collect on our deal?" His mumbled sarcasm did little to hide his fear. The slightest twist in the visitor's face betrayed a smile before he shifted to turn towards the ragged man.
"No."
Slowly, the ragged man shuddered and shrunk in his chair. His hands weakly cupped his face in his palms, and for all the life of him he wished he could cry out.
"No," continued the visitor, "that would be too simple, though I'll admit I'm hardly here to offer help. You've still got a way to go. I'm just here to tell you that it's not too late." And at this, the man turned smoothly and walked out the door, throwing it wide so the warm glow from the hallway touched upon the collapsed, shaking form at the end of the table.
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