Enjablog

“Hey, the file you sent out doesn’t address any of the comments we received.”
“Oh, you’re right. I think that’s because I forgot to save.”
So… you’re going to fix that when..?

I will not do your work for you just because you’re incompetent. Seriously.

I will, however, continue to point out your inadequacies until I lose patience and am forced to kick you in the face. It won’t be my fault though. You made me do it. You should apologize now.

Wow, I just sat down to write about my last few days and I completely blanked on the last thing I wrote about.

So.

I’m back from Texas. I was there for an inclining experiment for a sludge vessel. And yeah… a sludge vessel is pretty much what it sounds like. It was a new ship though, so not gross yet. It was unbearably hot and humid on Thursday and there were predictions of thunderstorms on Friday, so we moved our flights back from Saturday morning to the evening just in case the inclining ran over.

And then it was gorgeous on Friday. It was a little overcast in the morning, but the afternoon was 70s and clear. We finished up around 9pm and I went back to my hotel room to wash off the layer of grime I had collected throughout the day. It was an educational trip. I did my first tank sounding and got to climb in, out, and around tanks and machinery. I have decided that when I finally get around to sorting my clothes for donations, I need to start a shipyard wardrobe.

Got back Saturday night and just crashed. Sunday was mostly dedicated to the Post Hunt. I got my newspaper this week! So, I was able to look through the magazine and prepare before going out to my car and finding my battery dead. Again.

Ian came over for breakfast though, so he was nice enough to drop me off at the metro so I wouldn’t miss out on all the fun. It was crazy over there and I can’t believe people actually figured out the final puzzle. Our group was standing around with half our clues wrong and just dialing phone numbers from the magazine.

Headed home after the excitement concluded and Ian drove me to Target to get posterboard for the ASNE L&R student poster contest that I entered. Which was today, btw. I came home to work on it and promptly fell asleep on the couch with Dellilah on my lap. Oops…

Woke up to my parents calling on their way back from a wedding. They offered to trade cars with me later in the evening so I could still go to Annapolis today for the symposium. Woo!

Then… I procrastinated for most of the evening and ended up uploading a bunch of pictures to CVS for them to print out for me to use on the poster. Except the earliest I could pick the pictures up was 11am. So, I picked a CVS in Annapolis and set about laying out the rest of the poster.

It’s been years since I last needed to make a poster. Maybe high school… possibly earlier than that. Apparently, at some point posters got awesome and I missed the memo. I printed out my title and text; cut out colored paper for matting; paired off photos with text; and pasted/taped everything together.

There were 4 posters there today. One was printed on plotter paper, laminated, and tacked to a foam board. Another was professionally printed and mounted on a foam board cut to size. The third was done on a tri-fold board in the same style as mine, but with way more charts and equations… what with all of them being about technical papers.

The judges were really nice about it, even though when I walked in it was clear that the other people had put way more effort into it than I did. And mine looked like I had made it that morning… you know, because I had. The judges went around talking with each student for 20-30 minutes. One of the judges was even a volunteer at the event I made my poster about, so she had some good questions. She didn’t get to go around and see all the different games that were going on either, so she particularly enjoyed my pictures. Then they spent over half an hour deliberating and even asked the coordinator if they could give me an outreach award or something.

I did win a consolation ASNE membership for a year though. I guess they didn’t want me to be the only one without a prize. So, that was exciting. :)

On the way home I saw a big rig tipped over and facing the wrong direction, which looked to be a moving truck. There was a second truck next to it that they were moving all the stuff to.

So tired. Driving to VA Beach tomorrow night for training on Wednesday. Baltimore on Thursday.

When do I get a nap?

Just a reminder to Hokies who haven’t yet pledged hours for VT Engage… Today’s a good day to sign up.

Not really sure what else to say about today, so I’ll just leave it at that. Go do something nice for someone.

Man, with all my new-found free time, I’ve been staying up late and goofing off. Which means I’m more tired now than when I was being responsible and studying all the time. Sigh.

Went to see the SNAME student papers tonight. Entertaining, as always. I also discussed my grad plan with a friend of mine and he made a pretty convincing argument for me to do a thesis instead of waiting for classes to be offered over the next 4 years. I could be almost done with classes after next semester. It’s something to consider, at least. I had previously written off doing a thesis because I didn’t think I could … and because it would be too hard or time-consuming. But I think I’m getting better at this time management thing. And I think I could do it.

I even got a chance to chat briefly with my adviser about it. He says a distance learning thesis is a possibility… so we’ll discuss.

I think the technicality I need to face at this point is actually passing my class next semester so I have enough credits to officially be off provisional status and off probation. Right. Getting there.

And this is why I joined the TJ Class of ‘98 Facebook group:

e to the x, dx, dy, e to the x dx dy
cosine, secant, tangent sine, 3 point 14159
square root, cube root, log of pi
kick their axis TJ High!

Ah, the memories…

Happy birthday to my cousin in NJ!

I used fabric softener for the first time today. I stopped using the dryer a few months ago and my world has changed. I haven’t gotten shocked in my apartment all winter. My clothes continue to fit and have less wear and tear. And now, they come out of the washing machine soft. I’m so sleepy. My clothes are soft though.

Went to a former coworker’s place for a holiday happy hour tonight. She got a real tree for the first time and her apartment was so festive! Lights, garland, decorations… She even had boat ornaments all over the tree. They were so cool.

Looks like I’m going to be re-taking Advanced Aero/Hydro next fall. So, I’ll be studying up for the PE this spring, take the summer off, and be back with this same course. Uf. At least I understand much more of the material now.

Sleep.

This semester is kicking my butt. I spent a good portion of yesterday figuring out how to resign from the semester and drop my one class. It’s really that bad. But I emailed the profs to find out if it was just me or if there might be a curve that I should be accounting for and whether my last exam was at the point where it would be impossible to undo the damage now. It’s possible, but improbable that I could pass on my own merit. With a curve, it’s “practically feasible.”

So. I’ve decided. I’m not going down without a fight. (That’s what she said.) I’ve decided I need to quit the internet. Cold turkey. This is it. I need to eat, breathe, and sleep aero/hydro for the next 2 weeks. It will consume my life and then I will be free. Pass or fail, I will at least have tried… which I haven’t been doing enough of this semester. And if my best isn’t good enough, I will manage. Either way, I would be taking this again next fall, so I may as well make the attempt to understand it now. It can’t hurt, right? I mean, it can hurt. But it won’t work against me in the future.

I have so many excuses for why I’m failing this course. But what it boils down to is that I was unmotivated to work on this because it was difficult. It was more challenging than I was prepared for and I made a decision, conscious or otherwise, to not put in the effort so I would have an excuse when I failed. I allowed myself to procrastinate, goof off, and just not try. I’ve been doing this a lot lately. It ends now.

I have a couple entries left to auto-post over the next couple days. And then I’ll be back on the 11th. Maybe.

The Future:
I was planning to take next semester off and focus completely on the PE exam. Earlier this week, I went to go check drop/add to drop the class for which I pre-registered. Fortunately, the course that I signed up for, Advanced Naval Architecture, was canceled. Unfortunately, the course that I originally wanted to sign up for, Advanced Ship Dynamics, got added. This wasn’t offered last spring, so I think it’s on a 2-year cycle. Like the Submarine Design class I took this summer.

I need a plan. Should I just expect to be working on this until 2011? Should I lower my expectations even more and accept that I’m really just taking these classes for “fun” and not worry about a schedule? I’m tired.

I think that just decided it for me. I missed out on a lot my last year of my undergrad because I was so burnt out. In light of this semester, I think I need to wait until I miss school again and then sign up for classes. Maybe 1 or 2 classes a year. At least one semester off a year, probably summer since there usually aren’t that many courses offered.

Six classes left… So, let’s say I’ll finish by 2015. Whoa. Um. I’ll be 34. Let’s say a goal of 2012. 31 doesn’t feel nearly as far away. And it’ll definitely be something exciting for my 30s. I’m all negative about old people, but I’m so looking forward to my 30s. Much past that, I’m not so sure, but I have such high expectations for the awesomeness of being 30.

This is so cool:

The trees on Mount St. Helens were knocked over when the volcano erupted, leaving a life-size vector field of the pyroclastic flow. Sure, this is almost 30 years old now, but it’s still cool.

Oops. I’ve had so much going on this weekend that I forgot to attend recitation today. I got caught up watching football and then left to go to my parents’ house for dinner tonight for Lenny and Grandma’s birthdays… And only remembered when I got home because our TA sent out an email changing the time for next week.

This weekend… Friday was NewGirl’s and Ian’s last days at their respective jobs. Our floor took NewGirl out for happy hour. I skipped out a little early to have some quality BFF bonding time. Saturday started off early with some homework, cake, cookies, and catching up on last week’s TV shows. NewGirl’s going away bash was Saturday night, so I ran some quick errands at Target, Rack Room Shoes, the office, the bank, and Popeyes before arriving a fashionable 30 minutes early. I really thought everything would take longer. The longest stop was at Popeyes where I bought 30 chicken fingers and the girl behind the counter asked if I could wait 4 minutes for them to cook up more. Uh… yeah, I can wait 4 minutes.

The party was really fun. The U of M game was on and there was lots of gossip, food, and drinks. Of course, the purpose of the party was bittersweet, but it was definitely memorable. We had a gallery for my office art shelf, which consists of drawings NewGirl has created over the past year. There was flip cup, which apparently Boss got talked into playing. I’m kind of sorry I missed that part of the evening. Skunknut was sick and missed out on all the chicken fingers, but otherwise, I think everyone else NewGirl was expecting made it out to say goodbye.

After the game, a bunch of people started to head out, so NewGirl, NewGirl’s reason for leaving (a.k.a. boy-toy), and I made our way over to Boss Jr’s haunted house. It was definitely an adventure driving over, especially since I was driving and have no concept of direction in DC. But an hour or so later, we made it and, after signing a lengthy waiver, were thoroughly haunted. Boss Jr was a convincingly creepy clown. NewGuy had a zombie look going on. There was also a nun, an awkward mad scientist/doctor, a dude in a cage, and other random bodies strewn about. It was definitely fun and games for us since the three of us walked through the house together. But I think if I had gone through by myself I would’ve screamed like a little girl.

We got out of the city without incident, but then wandered Arlington for a bit trying to drop NewGuy off. I’m really bad with directions in Arlington and he may have been a little drunk mixed with unable to figure out where we were fast enough to tell me where to go. In any case, after about half an hour of extra bonding time, we successfully dropped him off. We promptly got lost again trying to find our way back to Alexandria, but we found NewGirl’s yellow brick road and were on our way.

So, I got home and was fast asleep around 4am. I woke up a few hours later to go meet my advice columnist hero at the ALS walk. It was interesting… I was so excited to meet Carolyn Hax, but then she was just a regular person and I totally felt like a nerdy groupie. Which was ok because then I met a group of girls who were also readers and came out to meet her like a bunch of groupies and we all hung out and chatted for the entire walk. Robin, Emma, Laura, Brooke, and another girl whose name I don’t remember… They were all so nice and welcoming. A couple of them came together, but the rest of us showed up solo and didn’t know anyone else. So, it all worked out. I also got to meet Kenny and Nick. And the kiddies were running around climbing over both of them, but I have no idea which one was which. I am so impressed by their whole family dynamic. I can only aspire to such maturity in my life.

On the charity front, our team won a second place award for the rookie team to raise the most money. This team was formed 30 days ago and raised over $10k. Our total doubled in the past 3 days and we were ranked 9th overall. It was all very exciting.

Afterward, a bunch of us were deciding which metro to head toward or what we were going to do with the rest of our day. I ended up heading over to the Freer Gallery of Art with two people and hung out for a while. Then I got a call from NewGirl letting me know that she had rented a cargo van to deliver her recliner to me. We ended up having to get past the mean front desk lady, but we got away with moving in furniture on a weekend anyway. We had a heartfelt goodbye and then they were off to get more stuff done before heading out for good tomorrow morning.

I went back upstairs to finish watching the ‘Skins game and then got a call from Lenny asking if I had baked a cake. I decided to head over to the parents’ a little early so I could head out right after dinner and work on my homework some more. Instead, I just hung out there longer and decided that it was very important for me to blog a bunch before doing anything actually useful or productive.

And now here we are. This is why I forgot to show up for recitation this afternoon. I kind of suspected I would forget since every time I looked at my calendar to see what I had scheduled this weekend, I was surprised to see recitation on my calendar and was concerned that I was going to be too busy. And well, I was. I least it’s recorded, so I can play it back and see if there was anything useful.

Ooh, I just noticed that this is the 20th day in a row that I have blogged. That’s pretty good for me.

Ok, I’m out.

Today was better. Crisis was managed, my lunch didn’t explode, got my library books returned last night, found out that there was traffic on the way home because there was a gunman on the loose (!), and class didn’t put me to sleep. I even went for a run this morning, which put me in a good mood. Oh! And I was offered strawberries and mango today. No scurvy for me!

Came so close to getting a good night’s sleep last night for the first time in weeks. I left my ringer on because I was half-expecting a phone call, which came in around 11ish. So, not too bad, but still woke me up. Then woke up again a couple times during the night from Ian/apartment noises. Then, I woke myself up just before my alarm thinking I heard the front door unlock. It was weird. I must have dreamt it, but it sounded so real. So then I was all worked up when my alarm went off and had to get up.

Work is calming down. Finished the bulk of my part for the proposal we’ve been working on. All that remains is addressing whatever comments we get back on this and then it wraps up and gets sent out next week.

Registered for VT Engage today. Not sure where I’m going to do my service hours, but I’m thinking the library. I’ll have to see what they need though, but maybe I could do like 2 hours a week or something. I can afford that.

Uf. I just checked the timetables for next semester to see what was available on the list of online classes. The only course requirement that I can fill that I haven’t already taken is taught by the same teacher I had for a class in undergrad.

It was one of my first distance learning classes. A professor had left the year before and hadn’t been replaced yet. So, they didn’t have anyone on campus to teach this course. The class met in a video conferencing room and the prof had a camera on him, a white board, and a pad of paper (with a camera pointed down on it). We, however, could only see one view at a time. Which meant that for the entire class, we watched his hand writing on a pad of paper. For 90 minutes, twice a week.

We had a camera pointed at us too, but he never saw when we tried to ask questions. So, my classmates took to reading magazines in class. You haven’t had fun until you’ve read Cosmo with a group of 20 engineers. Yeah. Fun.

From class last night. As I was following along, all I could see was “i blogz” “psi = blogger”. I can’t believe I’m paying for this.

Took my first test of the semester today. It’s available for about 5 days and we have 24 hours from when we download the exam to submit our solutions. I don’t know how I did, but I’m proud to say that I submitted my exam over 20 hours early.

Heh… yeah.

It was the same exam the on-campus class took. They had to do it in one class period (1.5 hrs I think), closed book, closed notes. We got open book, open notes, no hw/worked problems. So, I only took twice as long. ;) Oh well. They have a real teacher.

What I learned about in class this week:

Flow over a dead bird. Notice the vortices as the flow separates from the body.

… And knowing is half the battle!

I’ve been having this craving for ramen noodles for a couple weeks now, so I finally broke down and cooked a package up. As I was standing around waiting for the water to boil, I had a flashback to college standing in my kitchen waiting for the water to boil. And then I realized that I associate ramen with college. Or maybe the other way around. And I was having the cravings every time I sat down to do homework or watch lectures.

Mm… Noodley.