Friday, November 17, 2006

This week sucked huge monkey balls. Turns out. I had three tests in the last three days. Thats more than I'm expecting during finals week. Pretty lame, I tell you. The first was in metals on Wednesday. Those tests usually consist of going to class, writing down what the prof writes on the board, then copying it down on the test. This last one had a bunch of fairly tricky questions. Multiple choice answers where two answers are pretty good, but only one answer is technically right. Kind of irritating. We got that one back today. I got an 85%. The high score was 86% which three people got. Out of a class of around 30 people, I'll certainly take it.

My ME 402 professor was gone all week, and had a substitute come in to lecture. He was friendly enough, but right after the last test of the class its hard to pay attention to him. So on Wednesday the substitute told the class that there would be no lecture on Friday as he had nothing to teach and the regular professor would be gone. Later that day everyone in the class got an e-mail from the professor saying that we would have class, and a quiz worth twice as much as usual, and to "have a nice day." (Bastard.) Apparently a bunch of students bitched about it so he offered to give the quiz on the Wednesday after we get back, but still, a pretty dickish thing to do.

Two classes after metals I had a Mechatronics test. It didn't go too badly, but the last problem irritated me. I misunderstood the meaning of a symbol in lecture and may have missed the last problem on a 4 problem test. Hopefully I'll get partial credit, but we'll see how it goes. I really want a good grade on this test because that way I won't have to take the final. (The final is optional and can either help or hurt our grade.) *crosses fingers*

On Friday I had a test in Machine design. It was a thrilling test as only Machine Design can be. Plug and Chug for an hour. Fun times. By that point I had pretty much stopped caring because I was burnt out. I imagine I'll get both the Machine Design and Mechatronics tests back on Monday after break. I'm looking forward to a week of no homework, no tests and very little stress.

Thursday, November 9, 2006

Yesterday I had the academic equivalent of anal rape in the form of a thermal systems test. It was ridiculous. It was supposed to be a two hour test, with three questions. 40 minutes is a long time to beat your head against your desk per question, but ok, its doable. Nobody left within two hours. Most stayed at least two and a half, and most weren't able to get all the problems done correctly. The whole test was just kind of stupid. The first question was a diesel cycle problem that you had to find efficiency and so forth for. The question was asinine though. Supposing you have a diesel engine that is 6L, six cylinder and runs at some RPM. It seems reasonable to me that you would directly measure things like piston position (since it is hooked up to a drive shaft anyway) or maybe pressure in the cylinder because its EASY to measure. But instead we're given the properties of the air as it enters and a heating value for the fuel and have to calculate everything from that. Its possible, if you wave your hands at it and make some mad assumptions, but it isn't a pertinent question.

Anyway, to unwind after the test I went with some friends to see Borat. It was literally an hour and a half of "wow." And I don't mean "Wow! That was the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life!" no, I mean "Wow.... did he really just do that?" The pretext is Borat is a Kazakhstani reporter who is sent to the United States to bring back some American culture. Mostly he comes to the United States and acts bizarrely towards everyone he meets. There were five minutes of the movie that I really wish weren't, when Borat and his producer (a short and very fat man) get into a fight in their hotel room and end up chasing each other down the halls of a nice hotel stark naked. *Shudder* There were some funny moments in the movie though. Borat went to meet with some feminists (literally, as in Feminists of America), sat down with them and asked what feminism was. When they told him it was the idea that women are equal to men he started laughing, and told them that a Kazakhstani scientist determined that women's brains are smaller then mens. Its absolute bullshit, but those feminists got so angry it was hilarious. Most of the movie was like that: offensive beyond all reason to the point where you have to laugh because there's no adequate response to what he just did.

Russia banned the movie because it makes fun of Kazakhstan.

Anyway, I need to get ready for the weekly meeting with the boss.

Monday, November 6, 2006

So I haven't posted in a month and a half. Sorry. Turns out school isn't very exciting (or interesting) to do, much less to write about. I've had a collection of tests, quizzes, projects, assignments and all the other fun stuff associated with college life. Not a whole lot of fun. Actually, I don't think I like any of my ME classes this semester. They're all review and/or boring beyond all reason. Thermal systems is a repeat of thermodynamics, fluids and heat transfer. Machine design is a repeat of statics and mechanics. Mechatronics is new, but is mostly electrical engineering sort of stuff. Circuit diagrams and logic ladder diagrams and stuff. I can't say I care about those. Turns out...

So Saddam was convicted of killing 147 people and was sentenced to be hung, which is automatically appealed, which basically means nothing will happen for another two years. Go team. I don't know exactly what they intend to accomplish by going on with all this. He's clearly guilty, but he's being tried by people who already know he's guilty, so his guilt is assured in pretty much as many ways as it can be assured.

I found a recording of a comedian named Eddie Izzard who talked about how we really don't know what to do with people who kill hundreds or thousands of people.

"You kill one person, you're a murderer. You kill two or three and you're insane and get thrown into a mental hospital. You kill more than about twenty and people just don't know what to do anymore. It's like, well, very nicely done! You must get up very early in the morning. You're diary must be an interesting read. 'Woke up, death, death, death, death, death, death, lunch. Death death death death death afternoon tea...' "

Its sad, but very much true.


It was Dad's weekend last weekend. It was nice to see my folks again. We went to a Bill Cosby stand up comedy show. We had nosebleed seats which made it rather hard to hear him some of the time.

I have a "final" this week in my thermal systems class, worth 40% of the grade. Fun times. Its open book, and he said he was going to give us equations for the rest of the material, which makes the test rather pointless.

Next week is going to be even more enjoyable. I have either 3 or 4 tests in 3 days. Not much fun at all. Its a good thing I'm almost done with this whole school thing, because I'm getting tired of it in a hurry. Turns out.