some things are correlated

Current Mood: full
Current Music: "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers

um. Hello internet, it certainly has been a while. And, to pre-empt this post with a sort of disclaimer, chances are I won't be seeing you as much anymore. Not that I'm getting rid of my blog, or anything, just posting less. Lately I've been attempting the most difficult thing of my life along side with the second most difficult thing of my life (having a life and being an engineer, respectively).

To that end, I've cut out television from my life. We don't have one in the room, and I can't remember the last time I sat down specifically to watch a show. I catch bits and pieces of games sometimes, in the lounge or in Aaron's room, or I'll catch a bit of the Simpsons in the dining hall, but that's about it. Reading for fun is practically nonexistent, and I rarely watch movies. I'm starting a new effort to reduce my AIM habits and quit spending so much time on ebaumsworld and collegehumor, that sort of thing. Haven't touched a video or computer game in months, either. *sigh* I miss things.

So, you're expecting me to tell you all the awesome stuff that gets replaced, since I cleared all that room, right? Well, there's

*Purdue Football
I've never been such a big fan of sports before. I go to home games when the Boilermakers are here on Saturday, otherwise I try to listen on the radio at work. I also can't remember ever being so disappointed after a loss or happy from a win...is this what school spirit feels like? At any rate, things are bad for the Boilers. We're tied for dead last, 11th in the Big 10 with Illinois. Five straight losses, with more on the way. It looks like coach Joe Tiller's 8 bowl game streak will be broken this year, because I don't anticipate any big wins coming out of the rest of our season. Everybody said that since we don't face OSU or Michigan this year that Purdue, with it's 11 returning defensive players, was a serious contender for the Big Ten title. Haha, we sure showed them. Now Curtis Painter has replaced Brandon Kirsch as quarterback, the defense has largely been replaced by younger, more inexperienced players, and each game we get close and then lose. Homecoming hurt a lot. I actually was here for this game, shouting myself hoarse in the crisp October wind. More turnovers and penalties like last year, and one more loss (we're playing Penn State next weekend, shit) keeps us from even a Corporate Sponsored Crappy Bowl. I just hope we win against IU later in the year, and keep the Old Oaken Bucket. Then I can get my Saturdays back. I'm not sorry I bought season tickets, but I sure would like a win for the Boilermakers.

My Purdue hurts.

*Work
My job here in the office at Hillenbrand isn't really any better or worse than MWCC, just different. But to be honest, the concept of working during the school year is starting to wear thin. Scheduling is a big part of it. But mostly it's just that feeling of getting done with class, and instead of taking a break from everything for a bit before homework, I instead go to work and deal with people that want me to get mail for them after I've closed the mailroom, or they're upset I can't sell them this or that, or they blame me for something that's broken. It's hard to enjoy a paycheck when you really don't have time to enjoy it anymore. I thought my job was to be a student, but I guess books, out of state tuition, bills, and other such necessities aren't going to pay for themselves. At least I'm doing pretty well with everything. The cash register is no longer a mystery, I know most of the rules and regulations (or at least when to call Kyle), mailroom procedures, and I seem to be doing everything okay.

Scheduling is a treat. It's still up in the air whether or not I'll have to stay and work for Thanksgiving, or Christmas Break, or Spring Break. 12 hours a week doesn't seem like much, but when you've got CS projects or things like that to do, it surely does. Props to anybody who goes to college and has a part time job. I kinda miss *just* going to work (summer) or *just* going to class (last year).

*Relationships
Yeah. I'm pretty sure I've figured out that I cannot handle long distance relationships. Even a real relationship is looking shaky, for a number of reasons. I'm all screwed up on the inside, and I can't quite figure out why. That's all for now. Also, I badly need a new hat.

*Improv
Yay! Weekly awesome. A bit late-

Show: Hillenbrand Hall Homecoming Extravaganza
Venue: TV lounge
Audience: ~100+ (including my suitemates and coworkers)
Fools: Paul, Ryan, John, Matt, Benji, and Spanke
Comments: Wow. We packed the freakin' house for this show, and it was amazing. Standing room only. We had a rough start and a few problems with MCing different games, but really, this show rocked. We went for almost 20 extra minutes, and everybody loved it. I hosted an awesome Party Quirks, Interrogation went fantastic (Lamb Chop gets busted with tax evasion), and we had an audience volunteer for Chain Murder Mystery. Benji, John, and I had a little trouble with Three Things, but still, the energy was great.
Unofficial winners: Freshman (John) and T. Rex (Ryan), Foolish ambassadors to the Resident Halls, and Hillenbrand in particular. This was a big show, and the home field advantage really made it special. Special thanks to 3W RA Andy for getting food and posters up!

Show: Owen Hall Show
Venue: basement lounge
Audience: ~15 people
Fools: Paul, Ryan, John, Matt, Benji, Spanke, and Andy
Comments: Not as spectacular as the other one (it was on a weeknight, though). Smaller crowd meant getting suggestions felt like pulling teeth. Still, the show must go on, and any Chain Murder Mystery involving "pogs" has got to be good. Nailed Three Things, and I think my news story where *Tokyo gets attacked by iGodzilla* would definitely be in my improv highlight reel (oh, how I wish I had a highlight reel).
Unofficial winner: Benji McRobotWorm/RobotTwist/RobotSummersault. Because he's awesome at Three Things, and because I feel like it.

Some other bits about improv:
->Aggressive marketing on our part (including the activity fairs at the beginning of the year, an newly updated website, and some kickass word of mouth), as well as general showmanship (some would say "talent") has led us to our most ambitious scheduling season in Foolish history. We're averaging two events per month. Coming up is a show at Windsor (the all-girls dorm) in November, and a corporate gig for Bioanalytical Systems in December.

->John and I are slowly training to take the helm of the Ship of Fools later next year. Sadly, most of the company will depart at our next port of call (graduation), and in the meantime, we're taking notes on meetings, MCing, and other business, as well as recruiting, so that we can keep the Fools sailing the bountiful seas of laughter.

->We're trying to get together a Ship of Fools costume party for Halloween, and hopefully that will coincide with Ashley being returned from her captives in the Theatre department. Look for the best/nerdiest costumes you've ever seen.

->Bringing back improv workshops. We're looking for new recruits and also trying to help people improve their improv. Come to laugh, come to participate, come to learn.

*Academics

I have been provisionally accepted into the Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Don't get crazy...yet. What this means is that the College of Engineering has moved me (on paper) from the Freshman Engineering department over to the Aero department. They're assuming my grades this semester will be acceptable, so that my EAI will be high enough for official transfer. I'm scheduling within the Aero department on Friday (in Grissom Hall, no less!) for the spring semester. This isn't the real deal, but it's damn close. A small step in the right direction, and a much-needed milestone in my endeavors.

It also means I have to kick some ass, GPA-wise, and conquer Calc II. I have a crucial midterm on Wednesday, and boy do I have my work cut out for me. Limits, convergence and divergence tests, sequences and series. I just want this to be behind me, moving onto the next math class like I've always done. It's painful to have to repeat this class...I've never done that, and I've never had such a bitch of a time understanding one certain concept of mathematics. I just need a C...

My other classes are in various states;

->Physics 241 is the next-least-favorite class of the bunch. It's actually the last official science class I need for this major, but they're intent on making me at least a mini-EE before I leave. We've finished Couloumb's Law, Gauss's Law, RC circuits, and now we're on magnetic fields and Ampere's Law. Right hand rules!

->Next is Communication 114, where my teacher refuses to move us beyond middle school speeches. We're forced to write 3.5 speeches with mandatory lines such as "I feel that I am credible to talk about this subject because ____". I'm not kidding. If the "thesis sentence" isn't blatantly obvious, we're penalized. Hooray retrograde learning. Still, I must be doing something right, because I'm doing okay in there, and my comments on other's speeches (since I actually pay attention instead of reading the newspaper) earned me a cookie last Friday.

->Computer Science 158 comes next, where I'm muscling my way into C programming. Last week was a grueling endurance match, man vs. syntax, as we spent over 15 hours coding Project 1 of the course. In the end, the decode function only decoded the first term (instead of all 6), and the sin and cosine approximation functions only worked correctly for 7 out of 8 quadrants (returning a negative instead of positive value for the cosine in the fourth quadrant), but I still am damn proud of it. It's a huge project and I learned a lot (especially about loops and input verification), such that the homework was a breeze. I bet the next major project will be for Thanksgiving break. Bastards.

->Finally, the class I truly enjoy, is Computer Graphics Technology 163. We had our two hour hand-sketch exam last week and I'm pretty sure I did very well. I love sketching in isometric view. CATIA is a very powerful program, but as long as you don't over constrain, it seems manageable. Professor Miller is a great entertaining lecturer, and lab with Prof. Gable is very productive.



CATIA sketch, made last week in lab. Each part is made in a two-dimensional sketch and then extended into three dimesions (assuming the geometry is solid) and constrained in size and location.

*Other
->Eric wants to get me to start working out again, we'll see how that goes.
->I went with John and Joey to see a physics lecture a few weeks ago "God, The Multiverse, and the Goldilocks Enigma". It's the year of physics, and it was interesting in that sort of turtles-on-turtles this-hurts-my-brain way.
->D&D night isn't looking very optimistic.
->It's starting to get cold here. Yay 7:30 classes before the sun comes up (yeah, Indiana doesn't change times for some reason).
->Styx is performing in Lafayette Nov. 15th, but I don't think I can justify $50 for that show when I don't know the opener and I've seen Styx before. It would be different if I had a date.


And some tentative plans for the future, if things go as planned:

Go home over Thanksgiving, escape school for a while, get new shoes, watch, coat, bookbag, and haircut, and gorge myself on chili and turkey until I burst.

Work most of Christmas break for money and to avoid going back to work at home. Sleep and visit friends. Not get in a fight with family.

Do the spring semester thing as an Aero engineer (a true rocket scientist). Take a gen ed of something cool, double up on math courses, bitch about Aero 203.

Over the summer, live off campus with perhaps John, or Alex. Get a new car and either work in the office or get a smart job (internship, something), and take ME 200 (Thermodynamics). Go further into debt and cry.