Random Thoughts

I think it would be better if for this semester the weekends would fall on Thursday and Friday... simply because I'm busiest up til Wednesday then it slows down. And usually too burned out to get much accomplished Thursday and Friday (although I try!)

Yesterday my mom brought my little cousins down here to see the "Buzz Store" (book store). I definitely have brainwashed those kids. They ran around excited singing their interpretations of the "Buzz song" It was too cute! I live for the time I spend with those kids...

This morning I overslept and missed spinning for the first time in a few weeks. I'm mad at myself, although I didn't do it on purpose. I think I may be coming down with something...

Dr. Jagoda sucks because I'm fairly certain he hasn't even looked at my application (much less given it to Doc) and I already had to tell them that I wanted to extend my housing contract. What is the problem! I busted my ass to get that thing turned in by the end of August and he hasn't so much as looked at it months later. If you're too busy to be the graduate admissions person, here's a thought: don't be the graduate admissions person! I hope it all works out...

Yesterday Dr. Doug Stanley, who is a Tech research engineer but works at the NIA, presented the ESAS (aka what I poured my life into this summer). He was the head of the study, which makes me wonder why we never heard from him before today. You'd think he would've been a little more involved...

He didn't have anything to spectacular to present. In fact, what he focused on, which is the architecture they decided on, we knew about in May. I was a little astonished that he would stand up there and lie about stuff in front of a ton of people... but then again, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at that. Dr. Kirby told us we weren't allowed to say anything or ask questions (cause we are all bitter and pissed) but a guy from the SSDL asked my question. Knowing that they had thrown all the decision-making techniques and capabilities we provided them out the window, I wanted to ask how they reached the decisions they made. Dr. Stanley said "we did trade studies and used matrices" by which I assume he meant someone other than him pulled something out of their ass and now the government will spend millions of dollars creating this stuff that isn't optimized while pertinent scientific research gets cut.

Yeah, Doug Stanely, your study was a real success.

Among all this I have learned something very important. None of my friends and co-workers will be truly successful in the AE industry, at least not the space side. Why? We aren't nearly ugly enough. What is it with those who work at headquarters having pony tails?

He ended his presentation by saying that many of us will get to work on ESAS in the future... to which I say I already did and I'm not exactly jumping at the chance to do it again.

In other work news the other thing that I've been working on is now turning into "The Manhattan Project" as Michelle calls it. During a meeting today she identified me as one of her 3 key people, and that made me glad. I like working hard and getting more responsibility.

Monday in Fluids lab Dr. Seitzman was quizzing everyone (as he does, since he loves the Socratic method). We were going down the rows talking about a turbine (something you should, at the bare minimum, be able to do after having jet pro). He reaches one Amanda Lowry and instead of venturing a guess she says "I just want to be a housewife." Crazy. While I think being a housewife is a difficult and respectable job, if that is all I wanted to do I certainly wouldn't be an AE major. And even if I really wanted to be an AE or engineering major, I'd put some time into it and learn stuff so that I could apply it elsewhere and not completely waste my time. In my opinion there are still valuable things to learn regardless if you care about how a turbine engine works or not.

So, while I'm on my soapbox...

if you don't like a situation, change it. Or, give changing it your best try. I think that is one of the things that separates children and adults. Children are helpless and can only become upset and whine about stuff. Adults have the power to understand the situation and alter it.

The end.