Saturday 20th June, 2009 @ 10:59pm. Filed under life.
2 comments.
My last exam is on next Tuesday. It’s mechanics; some sort of crazy fusion of physics and mathematics (the two exams I’ve already had). Those two were the easy ones. It’s when they put them together, that people go ‘Oh Shi..’ and drop out to do an Arts degree. Pfft.
The tricky thing is, there’s very little theory. Most questions can be solved with one or two formulas which are incredibly simple. The trick is using them in the right places and manipulating the information you’re given to find what you want. It’s not like the other two exams because this is something you can’t cram for, only practice. I hate that. Hehee
A friend of mine wants to make a pool table, and we spent much of the day leading to mathematics talking about it. It seemed to help us relax, and stop us going crazy from numbers and functions and other wacky things. We’re actually making a list of things to buy even as I type, shame on me. But the idea is rather exciting because it’s a fun challenge that’s different from anything I’d have undertaken in recent months.
Especially something to take my mind off anything related to university.
Having just said that, it sounds like I don’t want to be there at all. I do, because I paid good money; it’s motivating in its harsh way. The other reason being, the idea of being able to make fun things in my spare time (that actually help me in future) has always appealed to me. Either that, or things for sheer entertainment.
I was just hoping it would be less like high school this way. I had in mind an awesome, futuristic paradise where I turn up wearing whatever I please (well, at least that came true) three days of the week, drinking some sort of…drink and making robots to my heart’s content.
The disappointment bites pretty deep, I’m sort of embarrassed to admit. Most people I’ve gotten to know feel the same.
So what do I want out of my time there? Just one thing; the knowledge to make machines. Machines help me now, and definitely will in future. I picked my course based on two questions I asked a professor of engineering on an open day.
‘Which course would I take to build a remote control car?’
‘Mechanical engineering’, he said.
‘What’s a course you would recommend in order to make a system that can deploy this car on command, and make it do stuff, like transform?’ (I hate to say it, but yeah. I asked that) ‘Well, there’s mechanical and mechatronic..’ he was struggling to gauge my reaction, but I was sold. The name sounded good, I signed up for it in the end.
And, wham. Look where I am now, hehe. Better get back to study, I guess. It’ll all fall into its own place in the end (=
Friday 22nd May, 2009 @ 9:16pm. Filed under life, ramble.
8 comments.
You know, that feeling. After high school or as time goes on (it’s just easier to notice after a transition in something, such as high school graduation) that people around you that you knew seem to change completely. People you used to know become pretty much strangers, and people you never really knew become very close. Well, the latter didn’t really happen to me, but yeah. It seems like everyone just becomes somebody else to adapt to their new environment; some sort of wacky take on survival of the fittest.
Me, I wouldn’t like to think I’ve changed much. Well, not like I’d notice, myself if I did. It’s just pretty interesting to see the differences in other people, heh.
All in all, it’s been a pretty boring week. I’ve had to make some sort of electric killswitch using some sort of circuit device made to be like a puzzle board where you slot things in. It’s incredibly tricky (and harder than compared to simply soldering them). Because they are not fixed in the board and I could not finish in the allocated time, I had to take it apart to start again at home because I didn’t have a big enough box. At least I have a clue now. 
and it’s really rather fun.
On the subject of people, it reminds me of something I was told about when I was younger. My dad pushed me into some sort of basic kung fu program when I was in primary school. I thought it was pretty pointless so I stopped going, because back then I was stupid and I thought anything that didn’t involve something you’d see in Dead or Alive or Rather Comatose wasn’t worth pursuing. It took me a long time to realise why what I had quit was so brilliant. It tied back to something the teacher dude had said.
We were just doing these stretch things, where we’d have our hands by our sides. When our arms were straight we’d rotate our hands up so the fingertips pointed outwards and the palms faced the ground. When the fingertips were as high as they could go, we had to lift our arms up and down. 49 times. Then we’d drop our hands again, and make and unclench our fists 49 times. It doesn’t sound like much at all until you’ve tried it. You really feel it afterwards.
Anyway, what he said. It was after we had finished and he talks about atcual defense techniques, which he never really did (the reason I thought he was so incompetent). It was basically a lecture about emotions an bodily movewents and other stuff. I didn’t pay attention because I was stupid, but this is what I remember, split into two parts.
Well, from the start you have basic movements. Bend down, straighten up. Raise arms up, out and the like. Very rarely do you have to lift your foot above your waist in your eveyday life and so this movement is unnatural. So’s spinning around and other things. So when you try the Triple Dragon Tornado Salmon Punch you’ve spent 500 hours and 500 dollars on to learn and perfect, instinctively in a pinch your body forgets it all because it’s purely so foreign your body rejects it as useless information.
Like I forgot to get the clothes off the line yesterday because Keeks needed a wipe-down before going to bed. It’s so different in a gym (with a referee, soft mats and foot pad things) that you’ll never pull it off where it counts. You might as well swing a pool noodle.
The other part was about emotion. When there’s nasty words about, and adrenaline and other silly things you get angry. Anger is like friction to you (or something like that), slowing your body and your thoughts down when you really need a clear head. Some other metaphorical stuff like that. And the reason why he didn’t teach anything like that stupid punch name I made up there is that when properly taken care of, your body is the first weapon you look to. It knows what to do. When your head’s clear, really clear, you’d be surprised how much faster, stronger and focused you feel.
So in the end, we just learnt to feel a bit less so we could think more. We could see ourselves better that way; maybe it explains my unhealthy obsession with other people. You see things different (yeah, it sounds pretty nuts). It’s just easier to not be something you aren’t.
Unless you are, of course, a triple dragon tornado salmon. If you are, umm…that would be pretty awkward.
Tuesday 5th May, 2009 @ 10:58pm. Filed under life.
8 comments.
Today, on the way to uni, Wuggs and I passed a small compact car, and a woman was handing out cans of Red Bull energy drink. I’ve never had some before, so it was okay. It tasted a lot like every other energy drink, but hey. I felt pretty good for most of the day; Wuggs and I took in total a good 4 cans. Yay!
Today was a rather special day so we went to eat at some small Indonesian restaurant. It was really quite fancy, and we got a rather good meal for a very good meal. It was a bowl of rice, some ox tail soup, some very nice barbecue chicken and some fried fish. It was all really quite nice, and the place was great too (except the nearby window was only a few metres from an elevated monorail track, and you could clearly see some passengers drinking Red Bull). Wuggs and I shared two cans during the day, and we each took one home. I’m saving mine for next week’s Physics exam, haha.
Tomorrow is our wind powered car race day. We had a month to make a car which would travel towards a fan using only the fan’s power, and the car has to carry a payload of our own choosing. The higher ratio of the payload’s weight to the time taken to go 2 metres (around 6 ft), the higher the score. The top three get full marks for that part, and everything goes down from there. Ours is looking pretty good; we’re looking to carry a good 4-5 kilograms (around 9 pounds).
This is our car [click thumbnail for bigger image]:
Heehee! I also made a small LEGO pilot; i’ll be sticking him to the top of the weights maybe. He was sort of our mascot; he used to sit above the kitchen sink to keep me company while i washed the dishes. Now, he’s a wind car pilot. Awesome career move.
Friday 24th April, 2009 @ 9:53pm. Filed under life.
21 comments.
Well, today’s the last weekday of this holiday. Tomorrow is Anzac Day, hence the immediate universe around me doesn’t really pick up pace until 1 in the afternoon. Which is fine by me; more time to spend with Keeks and Wuggs and stuff.
Anyway, we have a group assignment where some people I know (3/4 which I like) have to design a car which travels towards a fan using the fan’s own power. Originally I thought of hiding compressed air in a PVC frame, but the hissing would give it away. Hehe. So now we’re working on a windmill design that delivers power to an axle; I’ll post a photo when it’s done.
Today I went to the shops for a little while because my mum had to buy some stuff. I found a refillable lighter for one dollar. It wasn’t bad at all, but there’s a small LED in the bottom which I found very handy since both fuel and batteries are replaceable. Very nic, although it only has half the capacity as a normal one due to safety mechanisms and the batteries that power the bulb.
Over the holidays, I’ve found a new hobby; some odd obsession. Lately I’ve been intensely interested in hiding objects on my person under clothing or merging it with clothing. Long things, fat things, heavy, all kinds of things. I don’t know why. I just think it’s a handy thing, which could prove useful in future. The way I see it, every useless talent has some use; it’s just used less than your other major talents (like…walking).
Looking through bags of scrap cloth, the last few days I have been expanding some of the smaller pockets in some of my pants, and adding new ones on the insides. It’s sort of fun, and keeps me occupied over boring stretches of time. I don’t really know why I’m so interested in this sort of thing; it’s just another nice challenge with uses and rewards. Like chess, cooking or naked mud wrestling.
Well, that’s about all from me for now. Ngege
Sunday 5th April, 2009 @ 9:26pm. Filed under life, personal, ramble.
3 comments.
Sorry about the lack of blogs. I’ve been throat-deep in uni homework, and now the pressure’s just a little bit relieved. Sorry too about the strange title; I saw it stencilled on the side of some van today.
I’m trying to iron out my weekly routine and it’s going on pretty well, with a nice Easter break coming up to catch up on more personal things such as stuff around the home, and generally pick up the pace of things.
I’ll try add more to this slice of Heartdrops in the near future; it’s just i’m a bit low on ideas at the moment. Not much time, you see.
Something that’s been on my mind lately is…well, everything. I just wish it would slow down, and present itself one side at a time, like we all do. That would be nice. I’ll try sort them into an order.
Well, the first is the way I see people. Mainly it’s the way I interpret English; you see, my dad wasn’t really into sarcasm or exaggeration. If he was describing a fish with the spreading of his hands, that’s how big it was. If he said the eggs were good, they weren’t fantastic, but good. I pretty much learnt to take everything literally, and although I try to shrug off casually-flung things like ‘Idiot.’, some of it still gets to me and I just look like an aggravated asshole most of the time while people wonder what the hell’s wrong with me.
Because everything’s so upfront I get sucked into things that seem overrated. Will It Blend? Wow! Someday I might neet to pulverize marbles! I bought one. Hell, why not buy two? Done!* And things seem really overrated and deflating when I actually get the short end of the rope. The downside quickly accumulates and it gets really glumming at times. Haha, ‘glumming’.
Therefore it’s like I’m constantly re-evaluating everything I see, and everyone I know. I hate that, but I mentally categorize people.
I don’t want to do it but it happens anyway.
Trustworthy or no?
Asshat?
Racist?
You name it. And it sucks because I know there’s more to [most of] them than the labels I stick on them; but most of the time it’s all I see or it’s all they show.
Actually, that is the main thing. The main gripe. The other thing is the way I feel so helpless sometimes. One example is the 3D modelling project I have due the day after tomorrow, which I’ve barely started because the program required is incompatible with this version of Vista. That’s a minor example, but I hate the things I seem unable to do anything about.
Another thing; I tried making my own yoghurt.
First I mixed some milk with some cream, and heated it to almost boiling, to kill off any competing germs. Then I added a bit of organic yoghurt, and let it sit in the oven overnight wrapped in a big towel with a tray of very hot water underneath. It worked, except the culture didn’t spread as fast as I’d hoped. The first thing this morning was that I dipped a spoon in, tasted the surprisingly thin texture and instinctively mixed it to bring up the actual formed yoghurt at the bottom, contaminating the thing. Damn.
Well, that’s about it for now; I’ll try blog more. I really will.
*I don’t actually own one.
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