How things go

So school has started. Eep. Senior year. This is gonna be interesting. Uncharted territory. All that jazz.

Conclusion from last week's list:
1. Done. Zapdos, Dugtrio, and Dewgong can kill everyone by themselves.
2. Done, but need to redo now.
3. Read like 20 pages. I tells ya I'm a slow reader!
4. Saw Kartchner Caverns.
5. Did. Met a guy from my high school. Very different than me.
6. Nope.
7. Sort of. Some begin accepting applications next week!
8. Nope.
9. Kinda, to an unsatisfactory level.
10. Done.
11. Not yet.
12. Trying to, but school makes it hard.

I've now gone to all my classes. Quick summary:

AME 432- Heat Transfer. Prof is cool. Topic is interesting. Mostly math and applied Physics, so hard, but doable.

AME 446- Fuel Cells. Same prof I had AME 300 with. Had trouble keeping focused and not doing Sudokus in that 300 class. Topic might be cool. Relevant, but not sure how interested I am in it. Only taking class because other elective got canceled.

AME 352- Machine Dynamics. Lots of vectors. Might be fun to draw things out. Lots of number crunching. Prof hard to understand. Pretty PowerPoint presentations.

AME 400- Senior Mechanical Lab. Scary. 3 in-depth labs, each taking a month. Multi-person team. 15 minute PP presentation for each lab, plus write-ups and other necessities. Eek.

AME 413A- Machine Shop. Pray I don't cut my arm off. Never been a handyman.

AME 412A- Senior design project. The meat and bones. We get assigned to projects that we will spend until May working on. Hopefully I'll get one of my top choices. All interdisciplinary (Electrical, Systems, Optics, etc). On most of them, I might be the only Mechanical person. Pray I get a good team.

We shall see how things go. They ebb and they flow. They chase you 'round in circles like a horse in a rodeo.

summer wrap-up

Ah, and so my summer vacation finallu begins. Been a busy summer, working with Dave and the other guys in the geocam project. They're gonna keep working on stuff over the semester. Me, I got Engineering to do.

Tentative list of things I have to do before the week is done:

1. Finish Pokemon (original) Red. I found it in a box last week. I now have 6 badges, a Lv 42 Dewgong and a Lv 37 Venusaur. Other contenders include Dugtrio, Flareon, Fearow, and Butterfree.

Oh, and I CAUGHT Mew. Without a GameShark. They explain how on YouTube. The fact that I have one still baffles me. What to teach it?

2. Do all of my laundry.

3. Read the book that Brent made me buy. I've stalled at 10% for like 2 weeks now.

4. Go on a one-day road trip around Southern AZ. Think I want to go see The Thing- that mysterious roadside attraction on East I-10, as well as go see Kartchner Caverns. Anyone in? I was thinking Thursday.

5. Go to the Math Dept. inauguration for new freshman on Sat. This will be my first time going since I wasn't a declared math major at the beginning but added it in later. Think I have to go to a meeting before that. Don't know when.

6. work on the following video games (in no particular order):
GameCube- Paper Mario: TYD, Metroid Prime,
Ps2- Beyond Good & Evil, Killer 7?
Wii- SSX Blur, raise my Guitar Hero stats. Should I buy Okami? Been wanting to play that one for a whle.
Wii virtual console- SBCG4AP, work on super Metroid time

7. Figure out which grad schools I'm gonna apply to, find out how much they cost, rough draft a personal essay (My myspace entry is more just ideas).

8. Apply for the Math subject GRE. Learn real and complex analysis before the test, as well as abstract algebra.

9. Watch a few more movies. I have a whole list of "want to see"s on my facebook movies app. People have said I should join netflix, but I watch movies in spurts. I am knee-deep in a spurt right now, but will likely die off once school picks up full steam.

Well, at least I already got my haircut. I hate haircuts. I wish I could always be long-haired and beardy. But que sera sera.

If you want a copy of my summer report, it's 57-58 pages (We forgot to save a copy of the final final one so I have a copy of the almost final one). I can email it to you.

Oh, yeah,

10. Buy new printer cartridge!

11. Have a beer with Pat when he gets back in town, if he's up to it.

12. Revel in my last few weeks of being 21. WAAAH!

Partial truths

Warning: uncensored ideas ahead.

1. Graffiti taggers are more afraid of death than the rest of us

2. Serial criminals have undiagnosed forms of autism.

3. I would like to get a swimming pool-sized jar of coins, dump it in front of Barack Obama, and say, "HERE'S YOUR FUCKING CHANGE!!!"

4. I am not a horrible person.