Friday-Home for the Holidays!

First, I'm sorry didn't post yesterday.  I didn't leave Tech until after 6, so I didn't get home until 10:30.  After driving for four hours I wasn't awake enough to remember to post. 

My Calculus exam on Thursday was a little more difficult than I was expecting, but I think I did well. I'll let you know as soon as I know my final grades. I almost can't believe that I've completed an entire semester of college!

Well, I'm going to be home for the next month, so I won't be posting regularly, but if something interesting happens, I'll be sure to let you know. Happy Holidays!

Wednesday-This is it!

After studying today, I'm ready for my last exam of the semester!  In just a few hours I'll be sitting down to take my Calculus exam....

Wait, just a few hours?  Thats all, I've got to get to sleep!  See you tomorrow!

Tuesday-One More to Go!

This morning I woke up in full physics mode.  I got out m textbook and started flipping through chapters, writing down equations and making sure I knew the material.  While working on my equation sheet, I found out something interesting about Microsoft Word.  It will auto-capitalize lowercase Greek letters if they are at the beginning of a line.  I had to go back in and un-capitalize almost all of my omegas.  Around 6:00 I went to D2 with Matt, and we got dinner. And then...

I took my final exam for physics!  I felt prepared and the test seemed relatively easy, so I think that I'll get a good grade.  I got my grade back for my final exam in Engineering Cultures: 97.5%!  That should put me at an A in that class as well!  So now I am almost positive I will have A's in World Regions, Vector Geometry, Engineering Cultures, and my Galileo course!

After the exam, Matt and I came back to Lee and de-stressed by playing some Team Fortress 2.  People kept quiting and the server would automatically auto-balance, so one minute we'd be on the same team and the next he'd be shooting a rocket at my face.

On a side note, I haven't forgotten to post the interview with Aung San Suu Kyi from my World Regions class. In fact, I just found the video on Professor Boyer's page today.  Anyway, here it is.  It gets a little laggy in the middle, but thats not the video, its just the poor internet connection in Burruss Auditorium.

Well, thats all I have for today.  I'll see you tomorrow when I will share with you my exciting tale of...(pause for effect)...studying for the Calculus exam...ALL DAY!  There probably won't be anything exciting, but who knows?

Moday-Almost Done!

As of today, I'm more than halfway done with my Finals.  I took my World Regions exam on Saturday (even though I had enough points that I didn't need to), and took both my Vector Geometry and Engineering Cultures finals today.  As of now I know I have an A in both World Regions and Vector Geometry and I'm fairly confident I have an A in Engineering Cultures.

Tomorrow evening I have Physics exam from 7 pm to 9 pm and I finish up with my Calculus exam on Thursday morning from 7:45 am to 9:45 am.  Only three more days until I'm finished with my first semester!

Well I'm gonna head to sleep now, so I'm well rested for tomorrow. (and to make sure I'll be able to wake up for my Calculus exam) I'll let you know how physics goes.

Friday-Candlelight Vigil

Tonight, Virginia Tech held a candlelight vigil on the Drillfield for Officer Deriek W. Crouse, who died in the shootings yesterday.  Over one thousand students, university officials, and community members attended.  People read poems and a member of the Corps of Cadets played taps.  After the ceremony people wrote messages to Officer Crouse's family. It was inspiring to see so many people come together to mourn the loss of a single person. This is a picture taken from the War Memorial  looking out over the Drillfield during the vigil.

This weekend please keep Officer Crouse and his family in your prayers.

Thursday

First, I apologize that I didn't post yesterday.  I got back to my dorm late after a World Regions event, and I completely forgot.  Yesterday was my last day of classes for the semester. After this its exams and then I go home.  During exam week, I'll do my best to keep posting every day.

As you probably know, a shooting occurred at Virginia Tech this afternoon. I woke up at about 12:30 to the sound of sirens and saw several police cars driving down the street.  Then my roomate told me that he had gotten a message on his phone that there was a report of gunshots fired.  The message encouraged us to stay inside and lock our doors.  A few minutes later a second message came through giving a description of the victim and saying that he was headed on foot towards McComas Hall.

At 1:11 pm another alert came through stating that a police officer had been shot and that a second victim had been reported at the Cage lot.  At 1:18 one of my Facebook friends said that police had someone on the ground outside his building.  It later turned out that that person was not the suspect.  At 2:25 pm another alert was sent out saying that the reports of recent sounds ID'd as gunshots and suspicious activity on campus had been investigated and were unfounded.  At this time, this video was posted on Facebook.  It shows students in Torgersen Hall being escorted up to Torgersen Bridge by armed officers.  Another friend also posted this picture, taken in Torgersen Hall.

At 4:29, the last alert was sent out saying that they had determined that there was no longer a threat and that the lockdown was lifted. At 4:30, the University, the University Police, and the State Police held a press conference which you can see here. They didn't confirm that the second victim was the shooter, but it was implied.

This entire time I was in the 6th floor study lounge with Matt, who lives across the hall, working on physics homework.  As the news spread, I received calls and messages from my family including my sister, mother, father, grandmother, and aunt. After the alert was lifted Matt and I went back to my room and since we hadn't eaten the entire day we went out to get dinner.

I think that the police and the University did a good job in handling this incident.  Everyone on campus was notified within minutes of the shooting and there was a large police presence on campus in a very short amount of time.  Many people are starting to describe Virginia Tech as dangerous, but I feel safe due to the response to this incident.

As I close I would ask that you keep Officer Deriek Crouse and his family in your prayers.

A Rainy Tuesday

I got up early(ish) this morning for my Vector Geometry recitation. As I was walking out my door my roommate reminded me that recitations had ended two weeks ago.  So instead of going to that, I worked on my ePortfolio for Galileo.  The ePortfolio is a personal website that is supposed to give potential employers information about you.  You can check out my ePortfolio here.  I've written up a short biography, attached my resume, and talked about some of my community service.

Later, I went to my last Calculus 1206 class.  We finished up the year learning about tests to determine whether an improper integral is convergent or divergent.

Finally this evening I had my last large Galileo meeting.  We got to talk to Dr. Watford, who is the head of the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity which runs Galileo.  We discussed what we liked about the program, what we thought needed to be changed, and what could be removed.  I enjoyed being able to give feedback on the program.

In other news, I just got my Red Cross blood donor card in the mail, just in time for the Lee Hall Blood Drive on Thursday!  I've already signed up for an appointment, and I'm looking forward to being able to donate again.  See you tomorrow!

Monday-Awesome World Regions Class!

I usually talk about what happened over the weekend on Monday, but today I'm just going to skip to my World Regions lecture.  Tonight we had a special guest video chat with us during class: Aung San Suu Kyi.  Aung San Suu Kyi is a political activist and a leader in the National League for Democracy in Burma.  She wasplaced under house arrest for 15 years as a political prisoner, and was just released last year. She's won many awards for her efforts, including the Nobel Peace Prize.

In October we filmed this video requesting her to give us an interview.  We found that she had agreed to an interview and that she would be speaking to our class on Thursday, December 3.  However, soon after that she canceled the interview because Hillary Clinton scheduled a visit with her.  We weren't sure if we would actually be able to talk to her this semester, but in the end the interview got rescheduled for tonight!

During the interview, which lasted about 45 minutes, Aung San Suu Kyi answered questions that we had submitted beforehand. We were on local TV (WBDJ 7) and they wrote up an awesome article about the event. Professor Boyer said that a video of the interview would be posted online, but that hasn't come out yet.  When it does, I'll post a link to it in my daily post.  Before I go, here is a picture from the back of Burruss Auditorium.

There were more that 3000 people crammed in there to hear the interview!  That's all I have for today, see you tomorrow!

Friday- Nerf Wars Recap

This is going to be a short post since its now almost 6 am and I really want to get to sleep.  At tonight's Nerf war I got to try out two guns for the first time. The first was my Buzz Bee Belt Blaster, which I bought over thanksgiving break.  It had plenty of power, but unfortunately the belts come apart easily when they are just hanging loose.  I made a drum to hold the belt, but it got broken by a zombie in the first game, so I'm going to have to come up with something else.  The second gun I got to use was the emergency blaster that I talked about yesterday.  It worked surprisingly well.  In fact it saved my life twice!

After the War, some of us went to Deet's Place and got ice cream.  After that, a few of us went over to Newman Hall where we made popcorn and watched Youtube videos on a projector in someones room. We ended up watching videos until 5:00 am!

Thats all for tonight and for this week.  Have a great weekend and I'll see you again on Monday!

Thursday-Yep, Thursday...

So I got up this morning and did some laundry.  While that was going on, I worked on my Galileo assignment.  We had to look at our grades and determine what we had to get on the final exam in order to pass each class.  In order to pass I need to score at least a zero on all of my exams!

After laundry I went and got lunch and headed over to my Calculus lecture.  We went over more of L'Hospital's Rule including using it to solve improper integrals.  Those are fun because you combine limits, derivatives, and integrals in one problem.

After calculus I came back to my dorm and took practice quizzes in order to study for my Vector Geometry test.  Unfortunately, I took a bit longer than I thought I would, and by the time I had gone through all of the quizzes I felt that it was too late to go and take the test.  I'm going to take it tomorrow or Sunday instead. (the emporiums closed on Saturday)

Since I didn't go to the Emporium, I had to do other stuff, so I worked on the Atlas quizzes quizzes for World Regions.  I'm now up to 8 out of the 11 quizzes, almost there!  In order to get an A in world regions, I need to get at least a 16% on the final exam...maybe.  That's if Professor Boyer doesn't announce any extra credit in the next few days! If he does I may not need to take the final exam at all!

That's all I have for today.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow because I'll have a chance to try out the Nerf blaster I made at the Nerf War.  I'll let you now how it goes. See you tomorrow!

Wednesday-A pretty good day...

Today started out nice and earlt (for me) at 10 am with my small Galileo seminar.  It was relatively warm yesterday, so I put on shorts and a t-shirt. Well today was not at all like yesterday.  On my way to class it was very cold and windy and then it started to snow.  Needless to say I was in a hurry to get to class.

In my Galileo session the program leader came into our class to talk to us about what would be happening next year and encouraged us to apply to be second year mentors.  Apparently, all of the math, science, and engineering living communities will be moved into Lee Hall. In addition, Lee Hall is going to be renovated to add classrooms and a project work room.  It almost makes me wish I had taken a year off after high school. Hopefully I will be selected to become a second year mentor so that I can use these new things, but I'll have to wait and see.

After Galileo, I got some lunch and came back to my dorm room.  I took two more atlas quizzes for World Regions and did some work for Galileo.  After that I made this device:

It's an emergency dart blaster for Nerf wars.  It holds one surprise shot that I can use if my gun jams or runs out of bullets. It will probably be most useful for Humans versus Zombies.  The cardboard circle slips over my arm to hold the blaster in place, I pull back on the handle to cock it, and then I put a pin in to hold the handle in place. I can then slide any type of Nerf dart into the barrel and I'm ready to go. Here's a picture with it all ready to be fired:

I just have to pull out the pin connected to the blue string and the dart will fire. It doesn't get great ranges: only about 15 feet, bit I think that its pretty good for a homemade one. I'm going to use it at Friday's Nerf War and I'll let you know how it works.

In the afternoon I headed over to my physics lecture.  Today we were learning about heat capacity and work done by gases.  Also, as part of a demonstration on the relationship between temperature, pressure, and volume, my professor ran an experiment where he boiled water with ice.  First he heated the water to a rolling boil and then took it off of the flame.  Then he waited for the bubbles to go away.  He put ice around the flask and the water started to boil again.  The lowered the pressure inside the flask, causing the boiling point to drop and the water to start boiling again.

After physics I went and did more physics! I came back to Lee with my neighbor Matt, who lives across the hallway from me and is also in my physics class.  We worked together on the Mastering Physics homework assignment. About halfway through we gave up and went and got dinner at D2.  Turns out tonight was also an Gingerbread House Competition.  I didn't know about it so I hadn't signed up, but it was cool to see all of the entries. After dinner, Matt and I went back and, after much frustration, finished the Mastering Physics homework. After that my roommate and I played Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas Two on co-op mode.

Tomorrow is going to actually be a busy day, which is strange for my Thursdays.  As usual, I have my Calculus lecture and I'll be doing my laundry, which I do every Thursday.  I'll also be studying for and taking my last Vector Geometry test before the final exam.  I also have to finish the Galileo assignment I was talking about earlier and turn that in.  I'll let you now how all that goes in my next post.  See you then!

Tuesday-Oh Right, Posting!

Wow it’s late! I had just climbed into bed when I realized that I hadn't posted.  Today was another fun day filled with miserable weather.  It started raining this morning and it’s still raining now!

This morning I had my Vector Geometry recitation.  Well, I was supposed to...I went to the classroom and no one was there, including my TA.  I guess since there's no new material, there isn't a recitation.

Instead I got some lunch and then went back to my room to work on some World Regions Atlas Quizzes.  I borrowed the atlases from Brian, my Galileo mentor, who took the class last year.  The credit from the quizzes combined with the final exam should push my points over the A+ level!

After that, I went to Calculus and got my third test back.  I only got an 88, but combined with the 10 points of extra credit I have from another assignment it will be a 98! After we went over the test we started learning L'Hospital's Rule.  It's kind of funny; we spent all semester learning to take all kinds of integrals only to start L’Hospital’s Rule in the last week of class.

After Calculus I was riding back to my dorm when I ran into Tim and Mikey, two of my friends from high school who now go to Tech.  We all went to Hokie Grill and got dinner together. While we were eating Rohit, another student from my high school walked in.  He came over and we all talked for a bit.  After dinner I went back to my dorm and completed two more Atlas quizzes. 

Now comes the fun part! At 6:30 I went back across the drill field to Burruss for the World Regions event. Red Bull was there to film a documentary about our class and handed out a can of Red Bull to all of the 3000+ students in the class. We watched a movie called Bouncing Cats, which is about Abrahmz Tekya's struggle to create a workshop teaching kids about b-boy culture, break-dancing and Hip Hop in Northern Uganda.  It was a really inspiring movie and was very enjoyable.  After the film, Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón, who taught b-boy classes in Uganda, and Abrahmz both came out on the stage to answer questions and discuss the film.

Well that's all I have for tonight.  See you tomorrow!

Monday-Back at Tech

Despite some gloomy weather I had a great first day back from Thanksgiving Break.  It stared out cloudy and a little chilly this morning, but it warmed up a little by noon.  However, at five the temperature dropped and it started to drizzle.  Not enough to warrant using an umbrella, but enough to make getting to class miserable.

I started this morning with my physics lecture. We just went over a few of the major things we learned throughout the year.  Right after that was my Vector Geometry lecture, which was just a review for the next exam.  After that, I came back to my dorm and worked on the critical responses for Engineering Cultures.  A while later, I went to World Regions, where we spent about two hours talking about Japan.  We were supposed to finish Japan and spend most of the class talking about India.  Professor Boyer said that we would watch Inception as our final class film, and its a 50/50 chance that he was being serious. We'll have to wait to see what happens!

Tomorrow should be another interesting World Regions event.   There will be a screening of the film Bouncing Cats, followed by the first reunion of the stars since it was filmed.  Red Bull will also be there filming the class as part of a documentary.  They'll be giving out free Red Bull to everyone there as well.

Tune in tomorrow to hear how the event went.  Thats all I have for today, see you tomorrow.

Friday-Back home!

After four hours of driving I am back home with my family!  I caught a ride home today with a friend I know from Boy Scouts.  We left Tech at 5 pm and four hours later we stepped out of the car.  I-81 was congested so we ended up taking Route 603, which was an amazing drive.  There were icicles, mountain streams, huge rocks balanced on the sides of hills; it was great.  We got back on 81 and drove for a while.  We got off onto Route 340 and cut through Stuarts Draft and then got onto Interstate 64 and stayed on that until we got home.

I won't be posting every day during thanksgiving Break, but I'll keep you updated with any school related activities.  I still have quizzes in Vector Geometry and World Regions that I need to complete.  Thats all I have for today, see you soon.

Thursday-Pre-Thanksgiving Break

Today was my pre-Thanksgiving break.  My calculus teacher canceled class, and since calculus was my only  class today I had the entire day off.  Since I'm leaving for home tomorrow, I used the opportunity to clean my room, wash my clothes, and pack my bags for Thanksgiving break.

This evening Virginia Tech played the University of North Carolina, and of course we won.  It was a little worrying at first because UNC scored a touchdown at the start of the first quarter and Tech didn't score until the middle of the second quarter.  Then we scored a touchdown and a field goal before the end of the half and then two more touchdowns in the third quarter. Near the end of the game, though, UNC scored two more touchdowns bringing it up to a three point difference.  However, time ran out and Tech won!

I'll be catching a ride to Richmond with a friend tomorrow afternoon, so my next post will be written from home! That's all for tonight.

Wednesday- Last physics lab

I had my last physics lab of the semester today, and what a lab it was!  We started to work on thermodynamics in physics.  In this lab we used heat engines and fire pistons.  There was boiling water, ice, fire, and pistons.  It was an awesome way to finish up the semester.

This evening was another World Regions movie night.  We watched a movie called "Rabbit Proof Fence" which is based on a true story about three mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement to return to their Aboriginal families.  It was a pretty good movie.

Thats all I've got for today.  See you tomorrow!

Tuesday- Backpacking Photos!

I finally got around to getting all of my pictures together from the backpacking trip.  Like last time, I created a slideshow with captions on each of the pictures.  Enjoy:






I hope you enjoyed the pictures! Thats all I have for tonight, see you tomorrow.

Monday-Not much to say

I've been busy studying for my Calculus test tomorrow, so I haven't had time to go through my photos from the McAfees Knob trip this weekend.  I'll have time after the test, so I will write about my trip tomorrow.  Until then, have a picture:

I don't really have anything else to talk about so I'll see you tomorrow with more pictures from the trip and a full write-up.  Now I'm off to bed!

Friday-On my way

I am on the road to the Hopper Creek campground, where we'll spend the night before heading over to the McAfee's Knob trailhead. 
Today was a big physics day. First, I had my physics recitation this morning. Then I had a physics lecture in the afternoon. Finally, I had a physics test this evening. Lots of physics.  I also completed an assignment for Engineering Cultures.

That's all for this week.  On Monday I'll be back with lots of pictures from the hike.  Have a good weekend!

Thursday-Winter has arrived in Blacksburg

The past couple of days have been pretty windy, and when I woke up this morning I found that the leaves have been blown off the trees.  To me this signifies the unofficial end of fall and the start of winter.  Instead of warm reds, oranges, and yellows, the trees are gray and brown.  Although the temperatures haven't changed much, it certainly feels colder.

This morning I went shopping for my backpacking trip this weekend.  I'm meeting up with my troop to backpack up to McAfee's Knob.  I'll be leaving tomorrow at around 8pm.  I'm going to try to post tomorrow, but between packing my backpack, taking a physics test, and writing an Engineering Culture essay, I'm not sure there will be enough time.  I will be posting on Monday for sure with pictures from the trip.  Here's a picture of the McAfee Knob overlook that I found online:

After getting back from Kroger, I finished my Calculus extra credit assignment, which was to explain how use the shell method to find the volume of a revolved function.  After that, I worked on some physics problems with a classmate to prepare for the test.  Then I went to my calculus lecture, where we worked on some calculus problems to prepare for the test.  We also went over Simpon's Rule, which is a method of approximating the area under a curve.

Tonight was actually a football night, and Virginia Tech beat Georgia Tech 37 to 26.  During the game I had to take a break to go outside, though.  Remember how I said it felt like winter?  Well nature decided to play along; at about half-time it started to snow! It continued snowing for about an hour.  Unfortunately, it was 37 degrees outside, and all of the snow melted almost instantly.  It was fun though! Here's a blurry snow picture!

Thats all for today.  Hopefully I'll see you again tomorrow, but if not have a good weekend and I'll see you on Monday!

Wednesday-Sorry, no real post.

I'm trying to get ready for tomorrow, and ultimately this weekend, so I don't have time for a full post.  I'm going on a backpacking trip, so I need to pack my pack and get all of my food together.  See you tomorrow for a full post.

Tuesday

I got up early (well early for me anyway) today for my Vector Geometry recitation. After recitation I got lunch and came back to my dorm.  I had some free time before my next class, and I ended up making a sword out of cardboard and PVC pipe. I'm going to use it to practice for Epic Battle Club so I don't catch another sword in the face!

Next I had Calculus, where we practiced integrating various functions so that we can get ready for our last test.  We are going to have to use six different methods of integration on the next test!

This evening I had two activities, my large Galileo seminar and a World Regions film event.  In Galileo, we had a graduate student come in to talk to us about time management. I thought it was funny that we're learning about time management now, when the semester is almost entirely over.  In World Regions, a group called Invisible Children came in and showed a film called Tony, which is about how the life of a Ugandan boy has been affected by the activities of Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army.  The organization's founder and a girl from Uganda were at the event, and they talked to the class and answered questions.

This article used to be longer and a lot better written, but I accidentally hit the back button and lost all of it.  Oh well, I guess I'll be sure to save next time.  That's all for tonight; see you tomorrow!

Weekend Recap!

Happy Monday! I actually remembered to post...barely!  I had a busy weekend.  On Saturday at 2:00 I went down to the lounge where a bunch of people from Nerf Wars were meeting to cook food.  We made Chicken Curry Pot Pie, Shepard's Pie, Potatoes, and Crumb Cake.  Since it was November 5th we watched V for Vendetta.  After the movie a few of us brought down our computers and played Team Fortress 2. We took a break to Deet's Place and DXpress and them went back to Lee Hall where we played TF2 until about 3am.

Since I was up until 3am the night before I slept in on Sunday.  After I woke up, I took my Vector Geometry quiz and did some other work I needed to finish before Monday.  Then I went to the weekly meeting of Epic Battle Club at Virginia Tech.  I don't really know how to describe it, so just read this article.  I had a good time until I got smacked in the face.  I thought I was fine and I kept battling until they told me that my nose was bleeding all over my face.  I went back to my room to clean up and it took almost 20 minutes before the bleeding stopped.  However, I'm planning on practicing and going back.

Today was a pretty standard day, Physics Lecture, Vector Geometry Lecture, World Regions Lecture.  In World Regions we had an extra credit "Flash Quiz", which is a quiz on the topics covered in class.  However, unlike regular quizzes you only know about it if you come to the lecture and you inly have five minutes to take it, so if you skipped class you probably won't get any points.  Thats all I have for today.

Friday, Friday, Friday!

Overall, today was a good day.  Overall being the important word there; It didn't actually start out too well.  This morning I fell out of bed.  Now that doesn't sound like a big deal, until you remember that my bed is lofted six feet above the floor.  The hard tile floor. I'm fine, just a little shaken, and my right leg which I landed on is a little banged up. After I had made sure I was OK, I took a shower, got dressed, and went to my physics lecture.  The fact that all of these things took a little longer than usual, and that the elevators were closed for maintenance, led to me being 20 minutes late to my lecture...not good.

After physics, I came back to my room and prepared for my second Engineer Cultures exam.  When I was looking for the study guide for this weeks test, I accidentally opened up from my last exam.  Now in the automatic Scholar grading software, it says I got a 19 out of 25, which would be a 76.  However, five of those 25 points belong to an extra credit problem, so in reality I got a 19 out of 20, which is a 95!  That made me feel much more confident about this test.  I also found out I got 10/10 points on my last 2 threaded discussions.  At the beginning of the semester I was thinking about dropping this class, but now I'm glad I didn't!  After figuring that out, I eventually found the study guide, prepared for the exam, and took it.  The exam is fully written, so I'm not sure what score I got, but I'm pretty confident I did well.

Today is Friday, which means tonight was Nerf Night! For some reason, there weren't many people there this time, so we played mostly lounge battles, which are, as you can probably guess, battles played in the lounge instead of the hallways and stairwells.  Our last game of the night was a blacklight battle, where the only sources of light were blacklights in each corner of the room.  Since the plastic from the Nerf guns is fluorescent, this looked really cool.

After Nerf wars, a few people went to Deet's to get ice cream and other treats.  After that, some of us went over to Cochrane Hall, where we set up a projector in one of the lounges, popped some popcorn, and watched the movie "How to Train Your Dragon".  After that, a few of us came back to Lee, set up the projector in the hallway and watched some Youtube clips until about 4 am.

This has been a busy week, and I haven't posted every day, but the next few weeks shouldn't be as bad, and I will be sticking to my schedule!  See you on Monday!

Thursday-Super Post!

Sorry I haven't posted the last two days; things have been remarkably busy this week.  But I'll make up for it with this special Super Post!  I'm going to start out with Tuesday

Tuesday started early with my Vector Geometry recitation.  Right now we're learning about vector displacement, velocity, and acceleration.  During the recitation we calculated how to tranquilize elephants.  After that I went to my Calculus lecture.  In Calculus we are learning about integration by parts, integration through trigonometric identities, and integration by partial fractions. During class we managed to convince the professor to cancel the lecture on Thursday before Thanksgiving.  That evening I went to my my Large Galileo Meeting...well I tried to.  When I got to the meeting room, there was no one there. I checked my e-mail and found out that they had canceled the meeting because there was a review night for the Freshman engineering classes.  Since I'm not in the engineering class, I didn't know that there was a review session.  From there I went to my dorm where my roommate and I went on a cleaning binge.  We spent about an hour and a half putting away Halloween decorations, taking out trash, straightening up stuff, and generally just making our room look nice.  I bet it might last a whole week!

On Wednesday I started out in the morning with my small Galileo class. During the class we started to work on our ePortfolios, which are personal websites meant to act as a sort of online resume.  After Galileo I went to my Physics lecture. From there I went right to my Physics Lab where I had a lab on rotational momentum. Like last week, this was another short lab.  It only took about an hour, where most others have taken about two. That night I went to see a foreign film for my World Regions class. The film we watched was Ip Man, which focuses on the life on Ip Man, a kung-fu grandmaster, and his struggle against the occupying Japanese during the Second Sino-Japanese War.  This was actually kind of a coincidence because I had watched that movie on Netflix over the weekend.

Now today was nowhere near as interesting as the past two days.  First off, I didn't have any classes in the morning, so I slept in until 3:00 pm.  Then I went to my Calculus 1206 lecture where we practiced taking integrals. After the lecture I worked on my physics homework.  Then I got some dinner, watched a few episodes of Star Trek on Netflix, and wrote this post.

Sorry that I haven't posted for a while.  Its starting to get very busy here, but I going to try to keep posting every day.  See you tomorrow!

Monday-I almost forgot to post!

Happy Halloween!  Its been a quiet Halloween here, most of the partying and stuff actually took place over the weekend, so, except for people wearing costumes to class, there's actually not much Halloween related activity going on now. There was a group of ninjas from the Galileo program that were going over to the Hypatia dorm as I was coming back from my World Regions class, though.  Apparently, they had been ambushing Galileo members as they got out of the elevators!

Speaking of World Regions, the Plaid Avenger showed up to my lecture tonight.  He passed out Plaid Avenger comic books.  If you don't know who the Plaid Avenger is you can check out his website here.

Thats it for tonight, see you tomorrow!

Sorry, No post today.

I just got back from my Friday night activities, and I am exhausted.  I'll edit this tomorrow to talk about with what I did.  Good Night!

Today twas a terribily terriffic Thursday

Today was awesome. Thats right awesome!  Thursdays are my "relaxation" days, so I got to sleep in until 10.  Then I went shopping and bought Halloween candy, root beer, and some other snacks.  Unfortunately, the University Mall  Kroger doesn't seem to sell dry ice, so I've changed my costume to Doctor Horrible.  If you haven't watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long blog, you should do it now.  I also found out that Kroger sells Nerf guns, so if I ever need to get another one, it shouldn't be too difficult.  After I got back from shopping, I had to go to class.

Later, I came back to my dorm and carved my Halloween pumpkin.  So does any one like pumpkin pie?

I can't have any open flames in the dorm and I didn't want to pay extra money for electric tea-light so I used my bicycle tail light.Now I have a pumpkin with a red, glowing pi symbol!

Later that night I started working on a new cooling system for my laptop.  They've turned on the heat, so my room is actually warmer than it was in the summer. My current cooling system is just two fans which blow air into the laptop.  The temperature of the air in my room is causing my laptop to overheat.  I could turn on my window fan to cool the air in the room, but that would make my room too cold, so I had to figure out something else.  Here it is:

I've put the fans in my window so that they'll blow cool air in.  The fans are attached to a cardboard box which funnels the air into a tube made out of Mountain Dew bottles.  The bottles direct the cool air from outside over the bottom of the computer, where the built-in cooling fans pull it into the computer. So far it cools the computer an extra 10-15 degrees and the fan actually spins slower.

That's all for today.  Tomorrow I'll be posting pictures from the Halloween party and the Nerf War. See you then.

Chocolate Day!

Its going to be a short post today because I've still got some work I need to finish by tonight, but I'll make it up to you tomorrow.  I'm going to be carving my pumpkin, and I'll post pictures once I'm finished!

Today was Chocolate Day at D2.  That means that they offered all sorts of chocolate related food.  There were chocolate waffles, chocolate fondue, chocolate dipped pretzels, chicken with a molé sauce, and even chocolate coffee.  A group from my floor went there for dinner and the place was the fullest I've ever seen it. We had to weight five minutes to get in and then it took another ten minutes to find a table.  Once we had finished eating and gone outside, we found out that they were serving smores out there as well. I didn't get any of those, but I still ate a lot of chocolate!

Well thats going to be all for today... What? I said it was going to be a short post!

Coures Requested!...kind of...

I finished planning all of my courses for next semester and I submitted a course request for them! Unfortunately, I couldn't actually request two of the courses I wanted: Engineering Problem Solving C++ and Introduction to Design and Economics.  These courses are restricted to specific engineering majors, but since I'm only a freshman, I'm still in General Engineering. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but because of Dual Enrollment and AP Classes I took during high school my schedule is a semester ahead of the "normal" schedule.  Instead of these two courses, I requested Elements of Material Engineering and  Intro to Science Fiction.  I hope to declare my major and change those two courses back to   Engineering Problem Solving C++ and Introduction to Design and Economics.

I had Calculus today and I got back the results of my second test.  Since this one test counted as  25% of my final grade, it was a pretty big deal.  I got an 89 on the test, but thats okay because there's an optional ten points extra credit on this test and I got a 96 on my last test plus an additional ten points extra credit.  That means that if I get all ten extra credit points my grade in calculus will be a 102.5!

Lee Hall is having a Halloween party this Friday and I'm dressing up as a mad scientist. I have a lab coat and goggles, and I'm going to get some dry ice to make a "smoking" beaker!  To go with the mad scientist look, I need a crazy super-weapon.  In this case I'm going to arm my pneumatic with tootsie rolls. Deadly but delicious!  I'm also going to be carving a pumpkin as part of a contest sponsored by D2.  I can pick up a pumpkin to carve, and its free as long as I return the pumpkin before Friday! I plan to do something like this:

Haha, pumpkin pi, get it?

I also have my own pumpkin that I bought, but I'm not sure what I'm going to carve for that one yet.

Thats all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another exciting episode of My Life!.

I could never get the hang of Mondays...

Whoops, I almost forgot to post.  I was getting ready to go to sleep when I looked at the computer and saw the link to here and realized I had forgotten to post.  Well, at least its earlier than Friday!

Speaking of Friday, I finished making the video from the Nerf War.  I was a zombie for the two humans-versus-zombie games, so the clips are all from the Team Slayer and Capture the Flag games.  Here's the video:

I've been trying to decide what I'm going to be majoring in, but I think I've got it all figured out.  I'm going to do my undergrad in mechanical engineering in four years, and then get a masters degree in aerospace engineering in my fifth year.  This way I'll have the flexibility of a mechanical engineer and the detailed knowledge of an aerospace engineer.  Now that I've got that decide, its time to start requesting courses for next semester, especially since course request ends tomorrow!

Last Thursday I mentioned that I was using my TV as a second computer monitor.  I thought I'd post a picture to show you what it looks like. The desktop background is a panorama that I took on the Mt. Rogers backpacking trip.  Its been stretched over both monitors using a software called Display Fusion.

That's all I have for tonight; I have an early class tomorrow and I've got to get to sleep.  See you tomorrow.

Wow, its late!

 Today was jam packed full of stuff.  First thing this morning was my physics recitation.  Out of the 25 people who are actually in my recitation class, a grand total of four showed up.  Instead of just trying to solve the assigned problems, we got to talk through principles that we didn't fully understand.

After the recitation, I went and got lunch, and came back to my dorm room.  I worked on a model of a project that I want to build. It's similar to this project by a group of students in Japan.  Here's what I have so far:

I got a little caught up in working on the model and when I looked at the time, I only had five minutes before my Physics lecture began.  However, this did teach me a valuable lesson: I can get from my dorm to Hahn Hall in only three minutes!

After the physics lecture, I went over to the Ware Lab to see if I could the Formula Team with putting the engine into their racer.  They hadn't gotten their engine to work yet, so they couldn't put it into the vehicle.  They're going to work on it on Saturday, and they hope to have it ready to drive by Sunday.

From the Ware Lab, I went back to my dorm and worked on my Engineering Cultures course.  This week we read about German engineers during World War II.  I finished up my threaded discussion, and posted it to my classes Scholar page.

I went to Nerf Wars again tonight.  This week I attached a camera to my Nerf gun and took videos during the battle.  I'll be editing the video over the weekend and I'll post it up here as soon as I can.  Tonight I we played humans versus zombies, team slayer, and capture the flag.  My team won capture the flag, but we lost the team slayer match.  After the matches some of the participants played around with the Nerf gun I built.  I followed these instructions to build it.  I used a soda bottle instead of a water bottle, and a snap in tire valve instead of an inflation needle, but other than that its mostly the same.

After the Nerf wars ended at about midnight, we went over to DXspress to get some food.  From there we went over to Newman Hall, where one of the guys from the Nerf wars lives.  The guys I were with are big fans of the "My Little Pony" TV series, and we ended up watching episodes until 3 am.  I didn't really see what the big deal is about the show, but they really seemed to enjoy it.

That's all for tonight, and all for this week.  See you on Monday!

Thursday...um...Thursday!

Today was another great day.  I only have one class, calculus, and thats in the afternoon, so I get to sleep in and relax for most of the day. When I do get up, I use my free time to catch up on homework, do some laundry, and clean up my room a little.  On a related note check this out:

This is a picture of my room that I took about a month ago.  It looks about the same right now, except the TV is on my desk acting as a second monitor. Also, I have a pumpkin on my dresser, but that will be another post...

After Calculus, I went to a meeting for Virginia Tech's Formula Racing Team.  I'm going to visit the Ware Lab Friday evening to help put the engine in the racer and I'm going to the first driving tests on Sunday.

From the Formula meeting, I went next door to the "End of CEED Mentoring Social".  That was fun, and I got free sandwiches and wings from Buffalo Wild Wings. There was music, board games, and a raffle drawing.  I didn't win anything, but I still had a lot of fun.

On my way back to my dorm, I stopped off at Deet's Place and bought a brownie sundae.  I wanted to get a sundae with cookie dough ice cream, crumbled Oreo, Reese's Pieces, and whipped cream.  They were out of whipped cream so instead I had to get a sundae with cookie dough ice cream, crumbled Oreo, Reese's Pieces, and more ice cream.

After I finished my ice cream, I went down the hall to play Duck Hunt on the NES with one of my neighbors.  Thats all I have for today....hey, I finished a post before midnight! Yay!

What the Wednesday!

Yesterday I said that I hoped today would be more exciting.  Well it was!  Today's weather was no where near as nice as the weather yesterday.  Yesterday was warm and sunny, but today was overcast, cold, and rainy.  However, the all of the fun stuff I got to do today made up for the worse weather.

This afternoon, I had my Physics Lab, which is always fun.  Today we were studying collisions, which means running carts into each other and measuring forces and velocity.

Later, I went to the Engineering Majors Fair.  That was fun too.  Not only did I get to talk to Mechanical and Aerospace Engineers, I also got to look at student projects that I could join.  Some of the projects I'm interested in are the Human Powered Submarine, the Eco-Car Challenge, the Formula Racer, and the Mini Baja Racing Team. All of these are Senior Design Projects, but freshmen can volunteer to work on the teams.  I hope to join and work with one of these teams.  Of course, no engineering event would be complete without food, so I also got free pizza and soda. Yay!

This is a picture of Skidmark, Virginia Tech's Mini Baja Racer from last year

After the fair, I came back to my dorm and worked on my physics homework with someone from my class. While we were working on the homework, one of my friends came in with five leftover pizzas and he gave me one.  Yay, more free food!

Tuesday...thats pretty much it

Well today was Tuesday.  Thats about all I have to say.  I woke up, went to class, ate lunch, took a test, and then got dinner.  I came back to my room, did some homework, and watched an episode of Numb3rs. And now I'm writing this.

You may have noticed that the description says "Updated Monday through Friday", but the posts actually run from Tuesday to Saturday.  Thats because I wanted to describe my Monday through Friday, but by the time I get around to actually writing a post its usually past midnight.

Even if the day was rather dull, it was beautiful.  The weather in Blacksburg is fantastic.  The temperatures are cool at night and warm during the day, the leaves on trees are changing color, and the sunsets over the mountains are amazing.  On a semi-related note, I saw this picture on Facebook today and I thought I'd share it with you.  That is what our trees actually look like: maroon and orange all the way!

Thats all I have for today, but I'm hoping tomorrow will be much more exciting...in a good way of course. See you then.

Just Another Manic Monday

My first class of day was physics which started out great.  We're studying conservation of momentum and to demonstrate the concept our professor got out this contraption.

Its a "rocket cart"! The student squeezes the handle, compressed air shoots out of the tank, and the equal and opposite reaction causes the cart to move backwards...if the student doesn't have their foot on the wheel.  We actually had to run the experiment twice because the cart didn't move the first time.

My next class was Vector Geometry and we learned about lines and planes.  We covered equations,  distances from a plane, and determining whether two lines are parallel, intersecting, or skew.  Tomorrow I have my recitation and on Friday I'll have my unit  quiz.

Later I had my World Regions lecture along with about another 2000 people.  Although the class is called World Regions, we'll only start talking about regions next week.  During all of our previous lectures we've talked about current events, types of governments, and supranationalist organizations like the United Nations and NATO.

After World Regions, I went to DXpress for dinner because its the only place open when my lecture ends at 9:45.  DXpress is almost always open.  In fact, its only closed for five hours, from 2 am to 7 am.  After getting dinner, I went next door to Deets Place and got an awesome brownie sundae.

After dinner I went back to Lee.  The elevators in Lee are sometimes temperamental, and today was one of those days:   I got in and pressed the button for the sixth floor...

...and both the up and down lights turned on...and the elevator just sat there with the doors open.  I guess the elevator was just undecided.

Friday- Nerf Wars

I've been talking about serious stuff all week so I thought I'd tell you about something fun I do every week: Nerf Wars.  Every Friday in Lee Hall, a bunch of students, many of whom are in Galileo, get together and play with Nerf guns.  Some of the games we play include humans versus zombies, capture the flag, and king of the hill.  Nerf wars are a lot of fun and a great way to let go of stress after a week of school.

The Nerf group is not officially recognized by the university, but it has existed for three years and the group owns a large collection of guns, darts, and other accessories. Although you can borrow guns from the group, many students have their own, which they modify to shoot faster or be more powerful. I've modified my own gun to shoot farther.

My gun is a Nerf Barricade, which uses two counter rotating flywheels to shoot darts out of the front of the gun. I've taken out the three AA batteries that used to be in there, and replaced them with a single nine volt battery.  This makes the gun lighter and doubles the voltage, making the flywheels spin twice as fast and shoot almost twice the distance.  My next plan is to modify my gun to hold clips like this project here.  This would let my gun hold up to 35 rounds at one and to reload those clips quickly.

I've had fun blogging my first week and I'll see you next week.

Thursday - Co-ops and Internships

I just finished writing a cover letter for a co-op position in GE Aviation at GE's University Development Center in Houghton, Michigain.  If I do get this job, I'll probably spend at least a year working GE's Aviation Division. If I don't get this job, I'm going to try  to get a different one, still in the Aerospace engineering field.

Virginia Tech engineering, and the Galileo program especially, strongly encourages participation in co-ops and internships.  Through Galileo assignments, I've gone to a career fair with over 250 companies, written resumes, and practiced interview skills. Hopefully all of this will help me get an co-op or internship that will give me valuable experience and ultimately help me get a job when I get out of college.

 Virginia Tech encourages co-ops and internships because they believe gaining mere academic knowledge is not a complete education. They believe that a full education has to include practical knowledge and experience as well.

Wednesday-Ut Prosim

The Virginia Tech motto is Ut Prosim.  It is Latin for "That I May Serve".  Members of the Virginia Tech community take this very seriously and students are strongly encouraged to take part in community service activities in and around Blacksburg.  The spirit of Ut Prosim is perhaps greatest demonstrated through "The Big Event".

The Big Event is a student-run community service effort that is the 2nd largest event of its kind in the nation. Every spring, thousands of Virginia Tech students, faculty, and staff  complete hundreds of community service projects throughout Blacksburg, Christiansburg and the New River Valley.  Last year The Big Event attracted 6,731 volunteers who completed 950 projects.

Virginia Tech students are always encouraged to participate in community service activities, and Virginia Tech provides a wide variety of projects for many different areas of interest.  For example, I have participated in post-football game trail cleanup, which allows me to do something I enjoy, hiking, while performing community service.  I also had the opportunity to travel to Coalwood, West Virginia to volunteer at the October Sky Festival.  While I was volunteering I met NASA astronauts as well as Homer Hickam, which was a great experience for someone interested in aerospace engineering.

I brought up Ut Prosim because I participated in another community service activity today, the Lee Hall blood drive.  I gave my pint of blood, drank my orange juice, and ate my free cookies along with many other Lee Hall residents.  And now I leave you with this: a beautiful picture...of my arm.

Tuesday-Galileo Day

Today I had my large Galileo Seminar, so I thought I'd tell you about the Galileo Program.  The Galileo Engineering Learning Community for Men is a program for freshman in the College of Engineering which emphasizes exploring engineering, making lasting friendships, and achieving academic success.  Members of Galileo take a year long course which includes topics like professional development, academic success strategies, diversity, and personal development.  However, the major attraction of the Galileo program is the living arrangements.

All Galileo students live on the sixth and seventh floors of Lee Hall.  This creates a great community atmosphere in the dorm.  My neighbors are engineers, the people down the hall are engineers, and the people upstairs are engineers.  Everyone is very friendly and many of us have the same interests.  I would highly recommend the Galileo program to any incoming freshmen who are in the College of Engineering.

In addition to the Galileo program, Virginia Tech also offers the Hypatia Women's Engineering Community, which is the same thing as Galileo except it is for women.

Monday...World Regions Night!

Every Monday night at Virginia Tech is World Regions night and since my World Regions class is made up of about 3000 people, its a pretty big deal. All of the sudden at 7:00 pm 3000 people walk across the drill field to Burruss Hall and then at 9:45 3000 people walk back across the drill field to their dorms. If you don't believe me, here's a picture of my class:

If there is one class you have to take at Virginia Tech, its World Regions. World Regions is a fun class, and Professor Boyer is an amazing teacher. World Regions is an "experimental class" so we're always trying out new things like movie nights, international events, social networking, and on-line forum discussions.

Backpacking Trip Part 2

I'm back from my backpacking trip exhausted, but satisfied.  Instead of telling you all about it, I've mad a sideshow of photos that I took along the trail.  Each photo has a caption describing what is]t is.  If it doesn't have a caption, its just something that I thought looked neat. Just click play to get started!




After we finished our hike, we went to Cracker Barrel to get some "real" food and then headed back to Virginia Tech. Once we got back, we totaled up our mileage, and it turned out that we had hiked 30 miles, instead of the 21 miles that we had planned.

For my panoramas, I use a software called Microsoft Image Composite Editor. Its free to download for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. All you do is drag select pictures to stitch, and the software does the rest. It will even create panoramas from video clips!

Backpacking Trip Part 1

Today I went shopping; I bought oatmeal, crackers tuna, ravioli, propane, and a whole bunch of other stuff.  Wait...propane? Yep, I'm leaving tomorrow for a three day backpacking trip with the Outdoor Club of Virginia Tech in Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area.   We will be hiking on the AT from Scales to Creek Junction, covering about 21 miles total.  Along the way we should see some awesome fall colors. I won't be posting tomorrow because I'll be on the trip, but I'll post a special update on Sunday with pictures.

First off, here's my backpack.  It's packed with all my gear except a propane fuel tank and my water filter. Another hiker in the group will carry those to help split the weight.  Speaking of weight, I'm not exactly sure how heavy my pack is, but its nowhere close to the heaviest one I've carried.

This is my first backpacking trip since I've arrived at Virginia Tech, and I've discovered I forgot to bring a few things with me.  First, I only have one water bottle with me, and instead of being a lightweight Nalgene, its made of metal! Instead of having to carry that, I loaded up on six bottles of Virginia Tech's finest Hokie Water from Owen's Food Court.  The cashier must have thought that I was nuts for buying six bottles of water at once.

I also forgot to bring a headlamp, one of the things that I think is a must-have for camping trips.  However I managed to come up with my own DIY solution.  Meet the Bike-light:

 It's a lightweight headlamp made from an old bicycle inner tube, the headlight from my bike, and, of course, duct tape.  It may not look like much but it should work well for this weekend.

Well, thats all I've got. I'll see you on Sunday; dirty, smelly, and with lots of pictures!

Bad Luck Bike Lock

Tonight I went to see the movie Sin Nombre for World Regions credit. Its about a Mexican gang member who meets a Honduran teenager, and her father and uncle who are illegally immigrating to the United States.  I thought that the movie was a very realistic, but very violent as well.

After leaving the movie I went to get my bike.  When I got there, I grabbed my lock to put in the combination and it came away in my hand, so I guess I forgot to lock it. I'm glad that my bike was still there! I rode to DXpress to get dinner, but when I went to lock up my bike I saw this:

The pin that slides inside the lock had snapped off, and I hadn't noticed it when I picked up my lock. I couldn't actually lock up my bike so I used the cable  to tie it to the rack instead and hurried inside to quickly grab some food.  After getting a pizza I rode back to my dorm and rolled my bike right into the elevator.  Right now my bike is sitting in my room in front of my closet.

I've borrowed a lock from someone down the hall who had an extra, and I'm going to try to get a new one tomorrow when I go out to buy food for my backpacking trip.