Monday, October 23, 2006

Forecast: Really Cold.

So, yeah, its pretty much freezing here. But I'm sitting here in my nice warm dorm room, with my hands resting on my pleasantly warm computer, and the soothing, crisp, pleasant sounds of Jars of Clay restoring my ears from their frostbitten state. Oh my.
So I have a Chemistry test tonight, but I really don't want to take it. Yes, I'm pretty much ready, but I just don't want to take it. I've really been putting it off. Yes, I put off studying on Saturday, even though I had time after the AMAZING half-time show the band did (making up for the football team's lousy performance on the field). Yes, I just sat around and watched a movie. And yes, I slept in really really late on Sunday. I did study Sunday afternoon, and then I went to church sunday night. Then after church I just wasted time again.... I walked down to the shopping center where EB games, Starbucks, Panera, and Borders are, and I walked around Borders for a nice change of pace. It was really relaxing.
Today, I'm going to go get a pumpkin, in the hopes that I will have the time, the patience, and the tools to carve something neat. But maybe I won't. At any rate, I'll still have a pumpkin.
Mmmm, I love the smell of winter. Its just so crisp and clean, and you can smell the snow on the air... I walked outside after church, and there I caught it, it was mostly dark outside, and a chilly breeze was blowing, but I could smell a Hoosier winter on the air... there's nothing like that feeling of knowing that snow, winter, coats, jackets, blankets, beanies, snowmen, Christmas, all of the above are just around the corner. mmmmmm.
So P.K. Imbrie, my engineering professor, said our next project was coming out sometime this week, and it was going to be a lot harder than the other two projects we've done so far. Yay.... hopefully it will actually involve programming... its supposed to involve robots, and programming the robots... i'll keep you posted on that one.
Anyway, so details have been requested about this Engineering 126H class... its proper name is "Engineering Problem Solving and Computer Tools", and basically its divided up into a lecture, where we learn about engineering problem solving methods, and how to think and learn like an engineer, and learn statistic and curve-fitting methods and stuff, and then a lab where we learn various computer tools: MATLAB and Excel mostly, though we done some UNIX command line stuff, and we'll be getting into some VBA stuff that is worked into excel, so basically macros and editing macros with VBA. But it's definately the class that requires the most work, and it takes a lot of hours outside of class. One team meeting for Morris the "Mach" Boilermaker Special lasted from 8 p.m. til' 2 a.m.
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment.

2 comments:

I Eat Dentists said...

I understand the illness called procrastination. Unfortunately I majored in that subject in much of my school life, and do regret it, especially when things piled up. It sounds like you aren't as bad as I am, and you do need those periods of relaxation (I like your description) and distraction from the work load.

That class sounds like "the-bom". I wish I had-had something like that in school.

Oh... ROBOTICS!!! DOOOOD, get as much out of that as you can. If you decide you really dig that stuff, I highly recommend taking any of the high level classes you can that involve anything AI, or Robotics. Even if you don't use it, the skills are very applicable, and it is FUN! I originally wanted to do that, but the field was more of a "hey, lets program some tinker-toys" field when I was first in school. If you can impress some professors, and get in with the Robotics guys (probably some pretty hard-core geeks, but probably pretty fun and brilliant) it would be the experience of a life-time to work on some serious cutting-edge research. The field is just getting going, and it is truely the place to be in the future. Keep us posted on things like that.

My life is more boring, but you can always check my Blog: www.ericthefamilyguy.blogspot.com

I try and update it periodically.

I Eat Dentists said...

Matt, have you ever considered becoming an astronaught? You are at THE school for it as you know. You are a national merit scholar, and in the school of engineering. i.e you are currently primed to go that direction if you choose to. I my limited world view that would be the best job on the planet, and there are only a few. Of course that means changing some focus a little in your education, and straight A's (which you can do). It would mean very hard work, and probably a masters degree after the bachelors, maybe more. Heres the thing: if you WANT to do something like that, you CAN. You just have to do it. Imagine flying the space shuttle... but that will be gone and something else will replace it, but probably better. Maybe you can be the first man on Mars, or the first man on Titan, or maybe lead the first inner-stellar warp ship to Alpha Centari! The thing is, that there is no "astronaught" degree, and really any advanced engineering program would probably get you in that direction. Besides, you can take that education and use it anywhere even if not at NASA.