Growing Older or Growing Up

I am now officially old. Sometime in this past year or so I magically turned into an adult - a legal for most purposes adult. The problem with that is that I still feel like a kid, like I know nothing and everything is exciting and new and strange. I am no longer on that magical age border that separates the girls from the women (legally, anyway), and seeing that feels weird. The honest truth is that I still have no clue what I'm doing - I've just gotten better at faking it.
So this week has been pretty eventful.
For one thing - it's national Engineers Week (eWeek for short) which means tons of activities and stuff going on through the College of Engineering. The big flick is the eWeek Competition, which is kinda like Revenge of the Nerds Homecoming competition except it's for clubs and not frats and everything is strictly alcohol free. So that kicked off and I got a cool shirt, and I've been competing mostly for UA Rube Goldberg.
The first event I went to was the Mr. & Mrs. Engineering Pageant - the Rube president won Mr. Engineering by cross dressing and being generally hilarious. I actually competed in "Engineer that Masterpiece," where we were given a bunch of random stuff and told to recreate Edward Munch's "Scream." This is what it ended up looking like:

   The winner of eWeek gets bragging rights and a little extra funding. But really, everyone's goal is just to beat SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers), who have won for three years running. The friendly competition has been a ton of fun.
In other Rube news, we've had one run with one intervention (someone touching the machine to get it restarted) and one run where everything worked, just not in the right order. I don't have videos, but the machine looks like this:

And I probably spent too much time making a cup say "Bear Down Arizona."

Classes are going okay. It's midterm season, so I've had a couple of tests this week, but they haven't seemed too terrible. My MSE professor has been out and back again. He's working with Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, and what he does is really cool. He takes photos with different wavelengths of light and compiles the images into an interactive viewer so that the actual painting can be compared with the drawing, which can be found here.  

And in more news, I have a boyfriend (I know, I can't quite believe it myself) . His name is Clayton, and he's super sweet and nerdy. He lives in my dorm and is also studying engineering. He likes Firefly and anime and long walks on the beach and whatnot. He's also very punny.

That's it from me this week. And in famous quotes, "Happiness is a state of mind. It depends on how you look at things," said by Walt Disney. And as seen on campus:

EDIT: A perfect run of the Rube Goldberg machine has been achieved. More pics and videos to come!

That Time of Year

Another week has gone by, another cycle of beautiful sunrises and sunsets and lab reports and greasy student union food. It's been a good week, and fairly productive and pretty fun.
To start off, last Saturday I became an elf ranger with a deadly longbow and a wolf named Snow in the first episode of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign I started with a bunch of guys from my dorm. The dice were on my side that day as we battled soldiers and frost giants on our way to take over the castle. It got really intense and was a ton of fun, and we're planning on undertaking the next part of our campaign tomorrow.
Benefits of going to physics class - last week a guest professor came in to talk to us about how pulleys distribute force and distance traveled - by hooking himself into climbing gear and spending ten minutes hanging from the ceiling while having us calculate his weight and the tension in the rope and such. Our actual professor was also wearing climbing gear, but said he was to scared for his life to actually go up. However, during the next class, he demonstrated how rockets work (Newton's third law) by sitting down on a rolling cart and using a fire extinguisher to propel himself across the room. It was crazy seeing how many phones went up in the air to capture that, and it was kind of annoying how the people sitting in front of me kept replaying it during the rest of lecture - with sound. I definitely won't forget either of those lessons. The demos in class are much more fun and exciting than the labs. I mean, bouncing marbles is okay, but it gets boring after a while.
I actually tried out for Comedy Corner, and had a ton of fun playing the improv games and doing skits. I made the current members laugh out loud a few times, which I am pretty proud of. I didn't make it in, but one of my friends from church did and did an awesome job at her first show. If I have time, I'll probably try out again next semester.
Next week is E-Week - a national week celebrating engineering. Clubs compete to see who has the most spirit and most engineering knowledge. Rube Goldberg is hosting, you guessed it, the Rube Goldberg regional competition, and is expected to win it by a long shot. Society of Women Engineers is hosting the "Mr. and Mrs. Engineering Pageant," in which couples selected by clubs will compete in formal wear, talent, and cross dressing competitions. Other clubs are hosting things like Jeopardy competitions, bridge building races, and grilling competitions. The traditional drilling rock is in the zone that is blocked off for the construction of Old Main, and so there is not a drilling competition at this time. I'm super excited because this seems like it will be a lot of fun and there is free food involved.

 Happy Valentines Day to everyone (or Singles Awareness Day, if you're the pessimistic type). May love and happiness fill your lives. Also, for all you guys,

More news next week or whenever I feel like it.

Meanwhile...

I know I missed a week, and I apologize. I'll make it up with a rant or something later.
So what have I been doing?
I've been to a couple of basketball games and figured out that the U of A basketball team is largely affected by the crowd (the Berkeley game was probably one of the first where most people weren't in red).
I have helped decorate the Rube Goldberg machine, which no longer looks like a bunch of plywood and metal bits thrown together. Specifically, I helped dimension grass and paint a park ranger falling down a waterfall, which looks pretty awesome.

I have messed around in AutoCAD, making stuff like this:

And also like this:

I've explored more, got lost, and found my way again.

I've volunteered at Ben's Bells, a local charity which promotes kindness by the distribution of clay bells throughout Tucson area, which was a ton of fun. We painted clay beads for use in education programs.

 

I found a cool app that's a game that also helps crunch data from cancer cells.

I had an interview for a position as a Resident Assistant next year, and I was good enough to move on to the second interview, which is this Sunday. I'm pretty excited about that.

I went to a Super Bowl Party at the Newman Center. There's a guy there who's in training to be a priest, Brother Kevin, who is a huge Seahawks fan. Watching him was almost more fun than watching the game. I'm kinda disappointed that the Goldie Blox commercial wasn't the same as the Rube Goldberg one that was floating around the web. The game was a blowout, and the commercials were okay, nothing to write home about.

I gave a presentation in Spanish about a guy who says he was lost at sea for 13 months, which went okay. 

My mind has been blown with Schrodinger's equation, which gives the probability of an electron being somewhere, and Maxwell's equations, which prove light is a wave, in MSE 110. The professor is finally back from Europe, where he does research on paintings in the van Gogh museum and elsewhere.  

I have gone off and around campus, found some soccer fields, and finally actually used my scooter (and got plenty of flak for it).

That's about it for now. Rant on something opinionated to come.   

Oh, and also, this is my roommate, Carly. She's from Hawaii and likes random scifi and fantasy stuff, too. She's an Electrical and Computer Engineering major.

The Fun Starts Now

Classes are officially starting to teach actual new things now that syllabus week(s) is over and we all have been told repeatedly to show up, do work, do well on tests, and not to cheat.
Now the real work begins. Time to get down to business to defeat homework and an increasingly busy schedule. Clubs are starting up again, and so is everything else. I trying something new to help e manage my time. It looks like this:

 I've covered my mirror with post-its so that I know my weekly schedule and can actually see when I'm free and for how long. It's color coded and I see it every day. It would be perfect if I could keep the post-its from falling off... but I'll figure that out.
My classes seem to be really interesting. My MSE professor proved light last class (or more exactly, that light is an electromagnetic wave that perpetuates itself), which was pretty cool. Spanish is almost all talking and not much writing, which is nice, and is the only class I have where girls outnumber guys by any margin. My physics professor is willing to play with bowling balls and basketballs, and it's really cool to see how the equations I learned in high school are derived using calculus (I'm crazy that way). The computer aided design class is pretty much all online, but the TAs are nice and it's fun to learn how to properly doodle electronically - in 3D! Labs haven't started yet, but I'm looking forward to them.
Rube Goldberg has started up again, and now we're down to painting and making it look cool. If you're on Facebook, like this page for pictures, videos, and updates - https://www.facebook.com/uofarube  - and yes,  it gets crazy.
I now have a camera, and as I'm not yet in the habit of remembering I have it, I don't currently have pictures of people yet. I do have friends. Anyway, here's some of the latest pictures from my explorations of the U of A - enjoy.

Beginning of Spring semester

Hello to all my loyal readers. I know it's been a while, but I had a fantastic winter break where I actually got to talk to a lot of you in person. Christmas Eve was awesome, as always, and Christmas week vacation to Ventura was a ton of fun. It was good to relax and see people and be barefoot for a few weeks.
But now it's back to the grind. School is back in session, and I think that this semester is going to be really fun. My wing in my residence hall has rethemed from Hunger Games to Finding Nemo, which is pretty cool, and there has been some room shuffling as people come and go. I'm still where I was which is nice.
I am really excited about my classes this semester. I have been to at least on lecture session of every class I am in, and most of them are going to be a ton of fun. My MWFs have the big lectures on the other side of campus, and my TTh have smaller sections on the near-side of campus (and the foreign professors). All the professors seem nice and open to questions.
I'm still planning on staying involved with Rube Goldberg, SWE, and Hall Council, as well as the musical. I still have plenty of time because most days I'm done with class before noon (the upside of taking on 8 AM class).
As I go through school, I've noticed -

• As I get older, the desks get taller but the writing space is smaller.
• As classes get more advanced, there are way more males teaching than females
• As I get more specialized, classes seem to favor one gender.
• As I meet more people, they seem to get stranger
• As I get out more, I am usually the one saying hi

Side note - I now have a working camera and thus am obligated to actually post pictures. As of next week, I will try to post at least one picture. As of right now, the most exciting picture I have is of one of my shoes. Also, Thursday will still be the day, although I might post random stuff throughout the week if and when I feel like it.
P.S. Click Here to see the Rube machine at the end of last semester. This semester will be for prettifying it and making sure it runs all the way through on its own every time.

Finals start

Today is "dead day" - the day when 24 hour quiet hours are instated and enforced pretty much campus wide and most people seem to be staying in their rooms studying anyway. We get today off, then finals start tomorrow. I have a paper to turn in tomorrow, then both math and chem finals on Monday, two days of glorious nothing, then my engineering final on Thursday, then I'm coming home! I've almost made it through my first semester of college. Crazy.
Finals week here is an event - there was a "Kickoff party" yesterday with a zip line, bounce houses, food, and swag. Tonight, the cafeteria is offering a free pancake dinner at 10. Pretty much every coffee shop on campus is offering free coffee. Almost every night this week, the library will have snacks, board games, and everyone's favorite, therapy dogs. On Wednesday next week, there's even free yoga in the bookstore! I don't know if all this stuff is a good thing, because the university cares about our well being, or a bad thing, like they can't have too many people doing crazy things because they are stressed. I think it's the former, but I'm not sure.
This past week, I went to see the a capella groups' fall concert. All four groups were amazing. The best performance by far was Amplified A Capella's rendition of "Royal" by Lorde. Notoriety, the oldest and biggest group, was also pretty good and is apparently going to National competition.
I also got the chance to see the both improv groups at the U of A - the Charles Darwin Experience and Comedy Corner. They both do a lot of the same stuff and are both really good. However, although the Comedy Corner people cuss more during their show, the Darwins are undeniably dirtier. Other than that, Darwin is pretty much Comedy Corner with more marketing and funding and music.
Update on the Doctor Who Musical - I'm in! Even better, I have a named part who was actually in the TV show. I am Sarah Jane Smith, a recurring companion to  the Doctor who first appeared with the Third Doctor then appeared sporadically throughout the rest of the series. I'm really excited about this!
I also have finalized my schedule for next semester. I'm taking Intermediate Spanish Conversation, Calculus 2, Solid State Chemistry, Introductory Mechanics (Physics), Intro to CAD (computer aided design), and doing the Honors Freshman research project for a total of 18 units. I am planning on being busy. Those classes seem like they are going to be a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to them.
I am also really looking forward to seeing a lot of you when I come home for Christmas!

Winter - almost

I've reached over 1500 views!
You can tell it's winter not by the weather or the lights, but by the paper snowflakes scattered around the dorm, everyone's antsyness about finals, and the not-Starbucks coffee shop is selling hot chocolate "complete with candy cane and gender-neutral snow-being shaped marshmallows." I should be studying right now, but I need a bit of a brain break, and hey, I'm practicing my "composition" for Honors Frosh Comp!
Against my better judgement, I auditioned for "Not a Doctor Who Musical!!!" (yes, with three exclamation points). The people running the audition seemed very impressed with my over-dramatic rendition of "Jabberwocky," by Lewis Carroll, and somewhat pleased with my song. I think I have a good chance of landing Donna or Amy. If nothing else, I' be a pretty good Weeping Angel. I promised myself that I'd get back into musicals/acting when I got into college because I loved doing them so much in middle school, and this was the perfect chance. I'll see if anything comes out of it.
I am done with Chemistry labs... FOREVER! (I'm taking a material science course next semester instead). I think I did pretty well on my lab final, which involved analyzing samples of "blood" for their iron and copper levels. Much easier than it sounds. That was a huge relief.
I only really have finals in three classes, which is nice, although I have a presentation tomorrow in English on my research project from earlier in the year, which shouldn't be too difficult. I'm most worried about my engineering final, though, because unlike most classes, that class seems to be made up of a bunch of unrelated topics that were kind of just thrown at us. I'm not too worried about math or the chem lecture finals.
Apparently Kim Kardashian was on campus this week. Apparently, she went here. Apparently, there was a "crowd" following her, but it was "not as big as was expected." Apparently, not enough people care. I don't.
Mark Zuckerberg visited Stanford this week. Social media exploded. He should have come here. I'm not jealous at all. No, really, I'm not.
I can't wait for winter break when I get to see my family and not worry about schools so much. Still working on getting a ride, but I'll make it out to SoCal somehow. It will be a ton of fun to see all my old friends again and chill.
Happy birthday to my dad! Hope it was a good one.