Spring Break Update

So it’s been a long time since I sat down and wrote a serious blog entry, mainly haven’t done it because of a lack of time and out right laziness. So I figure since I’m on spring break I finally have some time to do a decent post. Any let’s star with a brief recap of the end of last semester.

AE 301: Ended up getting a C in this, which I am extremely thankful for as the prf. gave us the final from hell. Seriously the thing was almost not like any of the previous tests, and was from so far left field that I think the only reason a lot of people passed was because the curve was really low. On a related note I am REALLY glad I took AE 320 last year as the same prf. that teaches AE 301 teach AE 320 and apparently our class is the smart class and is giving us harder exams. But what made this one even harder was the fact that I had missed the review class as I was having some medical problems. So more or less going in to that final blind kind of sucked.

EM 340+341: got As in both, don’t have much else to say.

PHYS 197: managed to pull out a C from the final, which was a little easier then I thought it was going to be. This is most likely due to some heavy last minute studying on my part.

EE 204: got a C-, which doesn’t really surprise me since I needed to basically ace the final to get out with a C. So for now the plan is to retake it my last semester as that’s when I have the most time open in my schedule to take it. Worst case I don’t as it’s not that horrible of a grade and it’s not required for anything.

EM 351: Aced the class and am very happy with myself.

So now on to Christmas break, which turned out to be extremely uneventful. You would think, since it is during these long breaks that we can get almost all of or even the entire group together to hang out and do stuff, as such it strikes me as odd that we don’t do anything. Granted I know that most in the group are occupied with work, especially with how the economy is right now, but still it is the holidays and people should still at least try and get together a little more often. What is even worse in my mind is that when we did get together for new years, we didn’t do anything. I’m sorry but when there is a big group of people gathered, we really should not be playing a single player game and rotating. What we should be doing is playing a game that as many people as possible can play, and work out some sort of rotation method. To top that night off, when midnight rolled around we didn’t even so much as stop and make even the slightest bit of celebration for the New Year. Sitting around doing nothing is something I could have done at home. I hate to sound whiny and complain but this is something that only comes around once a year, we should at least put forward some kind of effort to do something. Hell the year before I though was great, we had a genuine party to celebrate the New Year and it was a wonderful night. If we had even done 1/8th of what we did that night I would have been happy, but no we did absolutely nothing.

About the only other thing that I did over break was power watch the first 4 seasons of Babylon 5. I got the box sets for Christmas as Costco finally had gotten them back in and had a really good price on them. It had been several years since I had last watched the series when it was on the sci-fi channel and had forgotten what a great series it was. I honestly feel that there has not been a good sci-fi series that has matched it in terms of the size and scope, with the exception of the Battlestar remake which ended very well and I will probably talk about later. So I thought it was great to recapture a bit of my youth in re-watching the majority of the series.

So now on to how this current semester is going

AE 302 High Speed Aerodynamics: This has turned out to be a really great class, I have a Prf. I like and who know the material and conveys it really well. My only complaint is that for some reason I keep drifting off towards the middle of his lectures. Don’t ask me why but I just can’t seem to keep from getting a little nap during his class.

AE 303 Experimental Aerodynamics: From what I can gather, the class is less then half a step from mutiny. The prf. Is honestly that bad, and it would not be the first time that he has been removed from teaching a course. In fact he is so bad that I don’t bother asking him questions, I just go straight to the grader with them as he both knows what the hell the material is about, but also know how it should be presented since he is the one who actually reads our labs and has the major say in what score we get on them.

AE 310 Aerospace Structures: This class is one that I honestly feel like we have done nothing. This is made more evident by the fact that we will only just be finishing the second chapter of the book, which is really crappy and has even been admitted by the Prf. to be so, when we get back from break. To make matters worse the Prf. keep assigning these really long derivations which absolutely suck, and take forever to do.

CIVE 301 Mechanics of Materials: Looking at this to be an easy A course, especially since I got over 100% on the first midterm.

RWS 508W Scientific Writing: Another easy, but time consuming course. Right now my only major concern is the final paper, which we have not really covered as of yet. We are supposed to be taking about it when we get back from break, and it will be the only thing we will be working on after break. So at this point the class could go either way.

So that brings us up to now more or less to now. My sister did get her wisdom teeth out over her break, made the first few days of it really enjoyable for her. Other than that I have thus far been enjoying my break and I am mainly trying to just rest up and be ready to power through the last 5-6 weeks left of school before the end of the semester, which brings up another topic that I have been thinking about a lot lately. This will be the end of my 5th year of school, with next year being the last year of my undergraduate studies. One more year until I pass another major milestone in life and get my degree. To be honest I am a little scared, I have been in school for so long it will feel odd to no longer be going. Granted, I fully intend to apply and try to get into grad school right after; as I think it will be the best time to go, since all the stuff will still be fresh and because I really don’t want to enter the work place just yet. Still it’s a little scary to be facing a major milestone like this, I guess I felt a little like this when I got to senior year in high school, but that was more of fear of not getting into college, this is fear of getting out of college. Still it just feels like the last few years have sort of flew past in the blink of an eye. Any way right now I plan to apply to Caltech, MIT, Georgia Tech, SDSU, UCSD, and Stanford for grad school. My two top picks are Stanford and Caltech, Caltech as the Jet Propulsion Lab, JPL, is right next door and from what I hear form a friend who got a summer internship there they give Caltech students first pick for internships, and Stanford as they have a research project there that sounds really interesting and is something that looks like it would relate a lot with what I want to do when I get out of school.

So while I’m on the subject of looking to the future summer is now just around the corner so I figure I should talk a little about summer plans. So the first thing up this summer is that my family is going to Disney world, continuing what seems like a little family tradition of going every 4 years. After that Anime Expo is almost immediately after it, which I will be staying up in LA again for as I had a blast at. Also should you be staying in LA I have to defiantly recommend the O Hotel, the hotel I stayed at last year and will be staying at again this year. After that I have a break and then Comic Con, which I hope will continue its record of being a blast to go to. Once Comic Con is over I plan to spend the rest of break doing more or less nothing in prep for the hell that is going to be senior year.

So I guess that is about everything that I need to say for now, I will try to be a little more active in posting on this blog, but no guaranties with school still being on. Most likely expect a post after finals summarizing how the rest of the semester goes.