Tag: UConn

That time again

I guess I’m lucky to say that this hasn’t happened to me in years. But it is happening again. And I remember last time sucked. Well, when it happens, it doesn’t suck that much – sometimes its even preferable. But the time spent preparing really sucks. That’s why this is such an unfortunate week.

I have four midterms on Thursday. The one class I don’t have a test in, has one scheduled for next week. I don’t know if there’s a right way to do this, but my method is going to involve a lot of dew and trance music. That should do it. Tuck and roll.

Come to think of it, I don’t think this has happened to me before. What I was thinking of was a single week that was packed with tests. And then I had a two year grace period where that didn’t even happen because I was taking classes from so many different departments. If I ever claim to know what I’m doing, I’m lying.

Carriage Cans

After a Friday or Saturday night at Carriage, there are loads of empties strewn about the lawn. There aren’t any public garbage cans (except for the dumpsters, which for some reason people don’t think of using) so unless you know someone in an apartment, the cans are usually just thrown on the ground. And there are lots of them. We’ve all heard stories of people making hundreds of dollars a weekend off of cans, and we’ve all entertained the idea of actually going out and getting them before anyone else.

The empties are in high demand. Usually after cops disperse the parties, people will clean their immediate front yard so they don’t get shit from the landlord. Then, early in the morning, locals come by to collect cans. That is, people who don’t go to UConn, but live close by. They know about this place, and come back each weekend. So by the time we wake up (around now) there aren’t any cans at all. You’d never know anything happened last night.

But what is the most interesting to me are the two groups that make this whole thing happen. There are the college students, who are here on their parents’ dime, and enjoying the hell out of themselves on the weekends. And then there are the people in their 30s and 40s, who we see as being in the real world, looking to make a little extra money and giving up part of their weekend to do so. Each group does this without batting an eye – there’s nothing weird about this. But to me it’s absolutely incredible.

08-09 School Year

I’m living in Carriage House Apartments this year, which is interesting. Its an apartment, which is really cool. I like it even more than I thought I would. But this apartment has a twist: for the last 40 or so years, it has been home to the parties that make UConn famous. Last night, there must have been 500 or so people who came and went through the apartment, and even more outside. With that many people, it is really cool at some points, and really lame at others. It all ends up ok though.

So I have a lot on my plate this year, but thankfully I have a lot of time to do it. I’m taking 5 classes, but I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And they don’t start until 11. I can afford to be laid back.

I’m hoping to get Landshark running smoothly, and a new business off the ground. I’m hoping to get the bus in capable hands to it can have a new life on veggie oil. I’m hoping to be able to do a lot of personal projects throughout the year, while I’m still in a place with an audience. And I should probably do some schoolwork in there too.

I don’t have a bed yet. And I have a lot of stuff that I don’t need, just lying on the floor. Hopefully I’ll be able to take care of both of those problems soon. Hooray blog!

Astronomy Final

Last semester I took astronomy, which was a fairly easy class, and not as interesting as I was hoping it would be. We didn’t really spend much time on the sky, and talking about constellations and such – apparently that’s more astrology. Oh well. So, much of the class was a lab where we would have to do math, and use equations, and generally do things (the complete opposite of what I had expected).

Like good slackers, many of us managed to get by doing as little work as possible. There were some labs where I never had to leave my seat because people would come by with answers, and I would give them some answers I had gotten from someone else. It was wonderful, and we were all doing fairly well in the class, until the Lab Final came around. The lab final was more strict than the standard labs, and we all had to work alone.

Because of our lab habits earlier in the semester, none of us really knew anything, and we were all pretty sure we were going to bomb that final. Our TA knew this, and being the cool guy he is, helped us out in an incredibly cool way. With about 10 minutes left in the final, he went up to the front of the class and told us, “I’m gonna go downstairs and get a snack out of the machine. I’ll be back in a little while.”

So the cheating commenced, and as far as I know, we all did pretty well on that final. It’s nice when people let things that don’t matter slide.

Moving out

Last day at UConn – I’m moving out today. By today I mean Saturday, not the way I usually use ‘today’ (being from when I’ve woken up to when I’ve gone to sleep). My roommate is already moving stuff out (yes, now) to his car so he won’t have to deal with it tomorrow. I’ll deal with my crap tomorrow after my exam.

There probably won’t be any pics from the tower because we didn’t end up going. I wanted to on Thursday night, but no one else was willing to go with me. Either exams or other things in the way. And tonight (last night?) it rained. Friday night. Friday night it rained.

A girl from the floor below ours told us about waxing the hallway floor with a can of Pledge. So we did that, sliding down the hall on socks, paper and cloth towels. Its nice when the hall can come together for activities like sliding into walls and landing on your ass.

View From The Top



View From The Top, originally uploaded by somjuan.

View From The TopA couple weeks ago we went exploring in our building, and we found out how to get into the attic. And from the attic, we found out how to get onto the roof. So I took this picture and a few others. Tonight, we’re planning on climbing the water towers (those ->). It would be easier if we had a bolt cutter or a set of lock picks, but a little acrobatics will do the trick just as well. They’re pretty tall, so I should be able to get some good pics from there.

Lamberton

Lamberton is the first name of one of the guys I’m writing this huge paper about. Its a great first name. So is Hezekiah. And Jair, Ozias, Elihu, Philemon, Cuff, Comfort, and a bunch of other great first names that haven’t been seen in hundreds of years.

I’m writing about Revolutionary War veterans from my hometown. To find out about their personal experience in the war, I’m looking through their pension applications, where they have to prove they were in the war, usually through a list of battles they were in, people they served under, or an anecdote of something that happened.

That’s what I’m doing tonight. And tomorrow night.

Sponsors

Yes We Can, Can by Animal Liberation Orchestra
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/alo2006-05-04.flac16/alo2006-05-04d1t07_64kb.mp3]

So apparently today is Earth Day. On Fairfield Way today there were all these folks who set up booths about their environmentally friendly businesses or products, so I went around and talked to a bunch of them to see if they would be interested in helping out the tour.

I went over to some folks proclaiming the wonders of their Green Roofs, and asked them how that would play out on a bus. (For the record: I think I only mentioned a green roof for the bus once, but that idea really caught on, and I kept hearing about it for months. It is probably not going to happen) These folks had some really pretty and impractical green roof solutions. Their stuff is modular, so it comes in these little blocks that you put on your roof. Long story short, there are way too many reasons that this (and really any green roof solution) isn’t worth it (for the bus). I’m putting a deck or something on top.

Next I went over to a UConn professor who is doing work on mass producing biodiesel. Just to clarify for those who don’t know, biodiesel is derived from veggie oil, but through a chemical reaction, is made pure enough to run through an engine without modification. My approach is to just heat the veggie oil to have it reach the necessary viscosity to run through the engine. He isn’t very interested in that, and I’m not very interested in bringing a chemistry lab along on the bus, so odds are we won’t be able to help each other.

Last I went to the solar guy’s tent. I talked to a guy from Sunlight Solar about a potential sponsorship of the tour. He said it would have to go through the dude who owns the company, so I shot off an email. I’m not really expecting much to come from it, but it would be nice. If nothing really happens, there are hundreds of companies who do solar that would be interested in helping us out. We just need to find them.

ENGR 100

Wasting Time by Animal Liberation Orchestra
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/alo2006-05-04.flac16/alo2006-05-04d1t03_64kb.mp3]

First semester of Freshman year, we had a class called Intro to Engineering, which was a one credit class that didn’t really tell us anything worthwhile, and generally wasted our time. I think the idea behind it was to expose engineering students to everything the school of engineering had to offer, but most of us were decided on a major, and didn’t really care what else was out there. So we ignored the class, and just went with it as much as we had to. The class never really required much of us, just attendance and a project at the end of the semester.

The project was to reverse engineer something. Anything really, but for sanity reasons we were advised to keep it simple. Ryan and Ryan had decided on reverse engineering a skateboard, and Eric and I had decided on a microscope. I remember a few weeks before the end of the semester the Ryans had a skateboard in their room, and they were working on that project.

Eric and I had planned on doing something similar, but we had a hang-up. It turns out neither of us had a microscope, and we didn’t want to buy one. So we started asking around, if anyone we knew had a microscope. It turns out Joe had one, and he was awesome enough to take pictures of it, and send them to us. So we included pictures of a microscope we didn’t have along with a bunch of other stuff we didn’t really know (there were a couple random physics equations we included because we figured they were appropriate). In the end, we completed the entire project without ever touching a microscope, or really knowing anything about one.

In the end, we got a D-, which was a higher grade than nearly everyone we talked to. Even the Ryans, who spent more time on it and had a physical object to work with did worse, and we couldn’t have been happier. I learn such great things in college.

nightmares

1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/tsp2007-06-19.mbho.flac16/tsp2007-06-19.mbho.d3t03_64kb.mp3]

My only nightmares anymore are school-related. And not the cliche “I’m in lecture and somehow not wearing clothes how embarrassing!” nightmares. No, mine are far more evil.

This morning I woke up thinking it was Tuesday, and that I hadn’t written the paper due at 1400 (which I’m working on today). In the dream I hadn’t written the paper, but I woke up still thinking it. That’s a horrible feeling. It’s happened to me before, too. I remember waking up thinking I hadn’t studied for my history exam that day. After about a half an hour of ruffling through my crap thinking I had lost my book, I realized that not only was there no exam that day, but I wasn’t even enrolled in a history class.

I’ve got to figure out some way of devaluing school while not failing out.

I can’t remember having a normal irrational-fear-with-weird-things-after-me nightmare since high school. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.