Chris' Updates

It has been a very busy few weeks since I last wrote, but I'll mention a few of the big events. First, I'm sad to report that my Grandpa Doug passed away yesterday. He fell ill a few weeks ago, and went to a hospital. A CAT scan showed a mass in his lungs that was likely cancerous, but he declined to have it biopsied. If it were cancer, the act of surgically getting a sample would likely have sped the cancer's growth. Instead, Grandpa decided to let nature take its course, and come what may. He passed away peacefully in the hospital, and is out of his pain now. He was a Vietnam veteran, and was never ashamed of who he was, never let people's opinions define his self-worth. He will be missed. In other news, I've left my job with Transportation Services to try and find more fertile ground. TS has always been good to me, but many things contributed to my decision to leave. I was getting tired of working odd hours, early mornings, late evenings, starting and ending in d...

More to follow, but here's a video from Iraq that I just uploaded: Fun times.

Last week was a small break from the rapid pace I was keeping up. I worked little more than my permanent hours, but had a couple of midterm exams and assignments. The midterm for my database class was interesting; it was the first item we've turned in to be graded or assessed in any way. Many people felt that they weren't comfortable at all, because they didn't know what to expect, or what sort of material might show up. I tend to agree that some homework would have been useful, but I thought the test was pretty straightforward. Then again, I haven't gotten a grade back, so maybe I just grossly misunderstood. I took the second midterm for my differential equations class tonight, and I know I didn't do spectacular, but I think I did okay. In the humanities class, we're starting a pretty focused study of Epictetus' Enchiridion and Stoic philosophy. The Stoics believe that to be happiest and most in harmony with nature, a person should basically view events in...

Obviously, I've fallen behind my goal of weekly posts. All I can say is that I've been busy. School work is steaming ahead at full speed, and work has just been crazy. In the past weeks, I've taken and passed my differential equations midterm, and had numerous homework assignments in all of my classes. I just finished a project for differential equations, and wrote it within Google Docs . I've been using Docs for a while to take notes and write small spreadsheets, but recent feature additions allowed me to write a report worthy of printing and turning in. You can check it out here . Since this was for a math class, being able to insert an equation with LaTeX syntax and having it print nicely was invaluable. And I really love that I can access these documents from any computer, and don't have to carry it around on a USB drive or manually synchronize with an internet file system every time I make a change. I still hesitate to put everything in the clouds , but it wor...

Life has been going well, but I find myself very busy once again. Classes are starting to settle in to their norm. Homework is a continuous thing, but I'm trying to be consistent about doing it whenever I have a few moments, and staying ahead of my deadlines. In my differential equations class, I've been doing my best to read over the book before lectures and mostly teaching myself, which has been a huge improvement over what I've done in past semesters, trying to learn for the first time during lecture. My humanities class is going quite well, and I'm enjoying the material. Our first block of discussion was over the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , his first autobiography, and more generally about freedom of body and mind, and slavery's effect on society. Now we're moving on to discussions of the Greek philosophers. Currently we're focused on Socrates, and what a jerk he was. In addition to being remembered for his deep, critical thinking on ph...

Well, so far so good. The first week back at school has gone smoothly. My four classes are all reasonable, and one of them actually looks to be fun. Humanities for Engineers introduces engineering majors to something they might not get to otherwise experience; culture. We will examine many classics of literature and film, and are also required to attend "cultural events" such as live theater, jazz concerts, or (if justified and well-journalised) visiting a hookah bar. Also on the syllabus is a requirement to visit the Art Museum of Denver armed with oil pastels and sketch pad to duplicate a piece of contemporary visual art. The central theme of the course, acccording to the professor, is to explore what it means to be human and the human experience. It's something that can many times escape the mind of the engineer, who is posessed of creating new machines or chemicals or highways. Beyond classes, I've been doing lots of bus driving, and looking for work elsewhere. I...

After a long hiatus, I'm finally headed back to the classrooms of CU. Tomorrow is the first day of school. Almost everything is ready; my books are purchased, I didn't need any new supplies, and I have my parking and bus passes. I still need to file a little bit of paperwork for my brand-new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits. Luckily, in the Financial Aid department, my new status as married and a veteran means that only my own financial situation is considered, not my parents'. And since I'm a poor college student, I'm receiving a lot more tuition grants. I'm pretty excited about being a student again. Riding on my recent wave of inspiration, I realize that being pushed back a year means I'll be in a different group of student colleagues. That gives me an opportunity to change people's perception of me. I can be the guy organizing study sessions and going to review sessions and office hours. I can be the guy that hangs out in the computer lab and helps underc...