a hectic weekend

So my mom went in for surgery on Friday and they let her out the next day. That's pretty cool, but they had to be more invasive than they had initially planned, so she's in a bit more hurt. But she's taking it slow, she's not going to work for a while. Thank goodness. Plus she has this pouch of...stuff... that we have to empty and record every 12 hours. It's a little gross. And I've had to help her get dressed on occasion and go to the bathroom, but it's nothing new. I've done it all before with my nana. It's just weird with it being my mom now. That's all. But she's resilient and hates doing nothing. So I'm just worried that she'll overexert herself while I'm at school. Anybody wanna do a welfare check?

Started work on our poster cause no one in my group had done anything that I knew of. Still need to do homework. After the 324A test last week I need to stay on task or else. I'm not as worried about this week's 3 midterms as a whole, butI need to focus on fluids.

And I found out they're offering Game Theory via SIE! Sweet. Does it count as an elective? I sure hope so.

hell

I'm only halfway done with midterms, I have to work on the poster for the conference that, frankly, I don't want to go to anymore, my mom is going to the hospital for her surgery at 9AM so I'll ditch class for that, but I still have to turn in 2 homework assignments that I know absolutely nothing about and have but 8 hours to submit. I need to find a summer internship. I need to finish this homework. I need to be able to drive myself back from the hospital tomorrow. I need to wash the dishes and do the laundry. I need to makesure Mom's gonna be ok. I need to finish the stupid poster. I need to stop playing fucking Guitar Hero. I need to grow up. I need to focus on school. I need to get my fucking license. I need to stop wasting my time on this fucking blog. I need to sleep. I need to remember why the hell I signed up for 19 units if I can't even do 15. I need to grow some balls and talk to people. I need to go to office hours.

I need
to crash.

Peripheral Vision

I think a saw a guy jerking off in the AME bathroom after my seminar class. All I know is that the guy next to me at the urinal was there for a while and I just saw something going back and forth in a constant motion. Granted, rule number one of bathroom etiquette is "You do your thing and mind nobody" so I focused on my needs and left ASAP. Not sure why I'm bringing this up. I just thought it was weird. I'm sure that you could get arrested for that, but who wants to be the guy to report that you saw a guy jerking off in the bathroom. Sounds a little voyeuristic.

I guess that's what midterms does to people. I have one at 9:30 that I'm probably gonna screw up big time.

grr, scheduling

So the Spring schedule is up. For the most part, I like what I can do for the Spring, but I am very bothered about what limitations I could have next year.

So far it looks like:

AME 300 Instrumentation Lab.
AME 324B Principal Component Design
MATH 466 Stats Theory
PHYS 242 Intro to Quantum (just for the heck of it)
AME 455 Control System Design (what that means, I don't know)

Units-wise I'm good. It'd be 15, the least I've had since Spring semester, freshman year. But then I had the easy-as-hell Diff Eq, so this semester wouldn't be quite as carefree. Ah, I remember all the times I fell alseep during Diff Eq, and then Patrick or Brent would wake me up when lecture was done. Good times.

I'm worried though since I didn't take AME 352 Machine Dynamics this semester, and I can't make it up over the Spring. It's one of those classes they don't want you to take Independant Study. But then I'll have a time conflict with an elective class I've been wanting to take since freshman year. poo. I guess you can't win 'em all. Or you can just take 5 years? I dunno, if I wind up doing grad school here then I don't think it would be an issue, but I think it would be a good idea to go somewhere else. But that's for next year. now I have midterms a plenty.

Urinal, 1, Mitchy, 0

A toilet peed on me last night. That was weird. I mean, sure, it was one of those ones with the laser motion detector thing, but it had this little button right beneath it. Needless to say, I pushed it, it went in a little bit, and it began to flush a little bit. So I held it down longer to get a full flush, and next thing I know there's toilet water on my foot. Naturally I freak out, step back, and of course then it flushes again courtesy of the motion sensor.

Not my most dignified moment in the bathroom.

But still go see "The Brave One." It's good. But it makes you think about people who are like that. People you know...

A pretty good day

School has been hellish. Plus this week I had the career fair, my final Psychology Experiment, and worries about my mom and her gallbladder. But seeing as it is 7PM and I am typing, I have to consider today a pretty good day so far.

I didn't fall asleep during AME 301. That was good.

I redeclared myself as a Mechanical Engineer. Goodbye, What-if SAPRs!

I saw Brent and we got to talk about stuff. He's got World Championships in a couple weeks. Good luck, man! I've gotta go to Kansas City in 3 weeks myself.

AME 460 might just be an OK class after all. I keep doing better on the assignments than I expect.

AME 495s got canceled because of the career fair.

I got a hat from John Deere after my interview. Whether that means I'm in the running for the internship, I do not know.

Plus they had free gizmos at the career fair.

And I got signed up for another interview tomorrow!

So either things are on the up and up, or tomorrow is gonna be the worst day ever. Seeing as I have a quiz in AME 324A and a fluids assignment due, that might be the case.

Air of something out of sync

GAH! I need to do stuff with people! I'm drowning here in a pool of Engineering assignments that I honestly couldn't care less for. If I get a C in 324A I won't mind too much. It just bothers me how I have to struggle to find significance in Engineering this semester, and that's what's been bugging me. I'm 5 weeks in, ready to call it a day, wrapping up homework at 2:30 in the friggin' morning, I need to go with my mom to the doctor at 9AM because she needs to see a doc about getting her gallbladder removed. I hate having to be so concerned about her and her health, but then again I don't think I would have it any other way. I just hate seeing this cycle begin to repeat of me starting to take care of mom, drive to the store and get meds, etc. (And believe me, I think I've concluded that just as I don't like beer I really don't like driving.) just like my mom did for my nana. There was a Walgreens commercial I saw like a month ago. It showed this lady taking care of her dad, and you know how in Walgreensville whenever people run out of tissues they magically reappear? Well in this one whatever the lady did to help her dad feel comfortable somebody else did the same for her. Bring her some soup. Put a blanket on top. It made me cry because that's how I've grown up, helping my mom take care of herself as she took care of her mother. And seeing as she was almost ready to fall apart with me gone for six weeks in Cali, God only knows how she'd cope with me out of state. In that sense I'm glad I stayed here. It just feels like family always finds the opportune moment to pull you away from somethign important, so you do what they want and then forge into the night trying to not fall asleep. Next time I fall asleep in the library I gotta remember to take a pillow. Ow, my neck.

Ugh. But this is me yapping at almost 3 in the morning.

Fuck. I forgot about the job fair tomorrow.

I'm ready for school to be over. Life's got me busy enough as it is. I miss sleep.

Harsh Reality

So I've had this assumption for the last 2 years ever since I started here at the UofA that Panda Express was good for you. I mean, it's not a greasy cheeseburger so it has to be healthier than that. Granted, for a real nutritious meal you would go to IQ or just buy a banana from the On Deck Deli, but I figured that the entrees at Panda were still pretty good.

So apparently a serving of Orange chicken is 500 Calories! Holy crap! And one bowl of rice or chow mein is almost as bad. Yeah, it's different ratios of proteins and carbs and fats an stuff so the rice is better for you if you can bun it off. But I'm just in a slight sate of disbelief. It's as if one of your best friends went and stabbed a knife through your heart. And seeing as a serving of Orange Chicken is like 28g of fat per serving, it might be doing just that.

Obviously some stuff is better for ya. The beef and broccoli is actually still pretty good for ya. And the Mandarin chicken without that delicious, tangy sauce is only half as caloric as the Orange chicken. But still, I'm just left in a quandary about where I'll be going to eat now. I know a couple of other people had had revelations about Panda awhile back, but I thought me and Panda were gonna stick it out like best buddies or something.

And I really need to buckle down and work on my homework for my classes. 65% on the first homework assignment is not a good sign. And the prof won't sacle in that class, either. The class is Statics on steroids, and so is the professor. All those late nights working with Brent, trying to figure out all the moments and the internal stresses, it's back and with vengeance on its mind.

I'm worried that I like my Psych 101 class so much. It's making me... reconsider some things.

Untilted

The weird thing I've noticed this semester is that school has somehow become secondary to life. In many ways, this is a good thing- you don't want to be a bookworm the whole time. On the other hand, I'm still taking 19 units, so managing everything at home, with school, and driving, and GAH! Makes you wanna scream sometimes. Makes me wanna find my Garbage album Version 2.0. I'm not only happy when it rains, but I'm definitely happy when it does.

They've been talking about this hurricane that's coming our way. By the time it gets here it'll just be a limp patch of moisture and wind, but it might give a final show for this year's monsoon. I remember 10 years ago when everybody was anxious to see how bad hurricane Nora was gonna hit us. And then it didn't, and they renamed it "Hurricane NADA" here. Damn. That was the 5th grade. Somewhere between reading some book about two kids that locked themselves up in a library and my first exposure to physics (The two trains are either at the same speed, or they're both stopped!) I found myself being the hall monitor for the first graders, and then when they all got picked up I went back to my room to get my bookbag, and everyone was still there. The class got a 15 minute detention for being rowdy, but seeing as I wasn't even in the room Mrs. Williams (her husband used to own the pharmacy next to the movie theater) told me I could leave. But no, I sat down and waited out for the punishment that I was not involved in. I walked home that year, so it was no big deal. It was kinda funny that I wrote an anonymous letter to my DARE officer about how the kid who sat in front of me always made stupid faces at me, and he figured out it was me because I was the only kid in the class who either knew how to spell anonymous or would take the time to find out how it was spelled. Or that time when I came in 7th in the class for running around the school twice. That was pretty sweet. And then when I had to judge who buzzed in first in the guys vs. girls spelling game and then Andres, Martin, and sombody (was it John? I sure hope not) were chanting down the hallway "We lost, we lost, and it's Mitch fault!" The gifted kids program had moved to the other middle school in town and we got to see the "Ecosystem" that was behind the adjacent high school (the only one in town) and there was that jerk named Jesse who always beat me at Minesweeper. He was a dick.

Wow. Talk about one thing and ten fly out. That was weird.

We're only in the third week of school and I'm already feeling swamped. Asides from all the time I lose traveling to and from school and taking the bus home, I can't concentrate here, but somebody needs to feed the cat. It's a mild case of stir-craziness, I think. One that might not be remedied until next semester when I'm only planning on taking 12 units. Ok, maybe 15 with a free elective. I wonder when they offer PHYS 242...

The big day... after

So yesterday was exciting. I turned 21. I got to do what people who are 21 get to do that doesn't involve gambling. At first I was gonna tally what all I had over the course of the day, but it's, um, kinda long.

I had 1 C***** and 1/2 a m******** for lunch
then at night I had
2 R** *** C****s
1/2 a m********
2 R**s
2 cups of w***
1 C******** (and it was disgusting!)
1 C****** R**
and I think (sic "hope") that's about it

So, yeah. I'm sorry; I overdid it. This morning I felt like crap. And after I threw up I felt better. So long story short I'm glad you only turn 21 once. I don't think I could handle it again.