An Engineering Course for Non-Majors

Welll… after some digging, I did find a course in the engineering field that will allow non-majors to enroll, unfortunately, it isn’t that practicle. The course is “Design of Intelligent Spacecraft” (ECGR3090, section W01 for those who want to register), it is technically “special topics”, so the provost doesn’t have a course description for it, but according to a website I found that contained a course description written by the instructor, it is:
“An inter-disciplinary course is proposed which integrates concepts from mathematics, physics, engineering and computer science to educate students on the design of intelligent spacecraft. Course instruction takes a new tact best summarized by the expression: All science was new at some point. This approach augments class topics with historic context and, in some cases, facsimiles of original works such as Galileo’s theory on planetary motion. Course topics include mathematical models of planetary motion and heat transfer and how these models are used in designing intelligent spacecraft, i.e., robotic systems which can autonomously perform complex space-mission tasks.”
Once again, I can’t register for fluid mechanics, but this shit is wide open to me.

Why can I not take Thermodynamics?

I was just glancing through the availible courses for the Spring semester at UNCC, trying to perhaps round out my schedule with something substancial, but all of the fun courses are closed to non-majors or require weird types of pre-requisits. I want to take Intro to Mechanical Enginerring, Thermodynamics I, Fluid Mechanics or something along those lines. I want to expand my horizons, and dive into something exciting, even if I do it under audit status. The question I have to ask myself is, do I want to do something like this bad enough to beg an instructor to issue me a permit to register for the course and then let me take it as an audit course? I guess I just want to take courses that will actually be practicle for me in my life. I dont think a lot of computer sci courses will help me in the real world. Philosophy will help me personally, ceramics will give me a backup career, but what about things that will really help me? I think that some basic engineering will help me in general, I just wish it were an easier field to take courses in.

4 Shelves, Now 1 Table

I have now condensed my work from being 4 shelves in the glaze room to now being 1 table in the glaze room. How am I ever going to get all of this stuff home?
[pic coming soon]

Worry for Nothing

After many tense moments of waiting, configuring my pieces on the table carefully, then going to the glaze room to wait for my chance to defend my pieces, I was confronted with a single question before the critique: “Curt, where do you see yourself in the future?”. I was unsure of how to answer the question, then Tweedy clairfied herself, “ceramicly”. I told her my goals based on my feelings at the moment she asked and after taking a second to look at my pieces I told her “I want to go bigger, but make my pieces lighter”. She pondered the table a little, looked to my cyllinders, said “your little guys get an A”, she looked at my tall cyllinders, “these are very interesting, I like them, well done”, then ok, your bowls Curt, hmmm…. not a perfect half globe in the bunch (a project-based peev of hers) “well, they are overall good, B”, then in a matter of seconds… “spheres and bottles, A, free project, was it 5 bowls?” No Tweedy, it was 5 bowls and 7 bottles, “oh, I made you work hard didn’t I”, no, it was fun, I enjoyed making the bottles, “hmm… ok, A”… “Curt, it gives me great pleasure to assign you this grade…” she holds out the review sheet in front of me…

A

I am really excited, so much so that I am now almost jumpy, and looking for people to tell 🙂
I did it, I got an A in ceramics.

Twenty-five Clay Pots

In a few hours I will be getting up to go to my ceramics “exam”. My final grade will rest on my 25 self-selected pieces. I have over 140 pieces completed, and I haven’t been able to convince myself that I have selected the best 25 pieces. I spent a lot of time looking over them, but im still uncertain. How do I know what someone else will like of my work? I can’t count on the work that I like myself, because Tweedy’s opinion is totally different, she is a strange creature. I have been worrying about every possible aspect of things: the forms (and their compliance with the projects), glazes (their application, their appropriateness for each piece), the compliment between pieces, and a variety of other things that the artistic types like to pick about. I don’t know when the last time was that I was this nervous about something.
One spot of bright news (or maybe just something to further complicate things), there are 3 kilns currently loaded with my work that will be unloaded tomorrow, providing me with even more options for pieces to select for my projects.

12 Years Have Passed, Some relief finally coming

Two days ago was the 12 year anniversary of my grandmother’s death. During the day I conducted myself fairly silently and in a mode of reflection and attempting to resolve the ongoing mourning in my head. Every year on December 4th I have either cried, been depressed or otherwise had problems functioning, much like the morning of her death. On December 4, 1994 my entire world changed. It started with a startled awakening as my mother and cousin entered my room at just after 4am to inform me of the event. It wasn’t a secret that the event was coming, at that time, cancer was almost a certain death. I handled the event gracefully given its severity and the earliness of the hour. I managed to exhibit no signs of weakness or mourning at all at first, staying strong, just as my grandfather was. It wasn’t until my grandmother’s Hospice nurse arrived and began talking to the family that my grandfather and I both reacted at almost exactly the same time. When I tried to calm myself and listen for the big clock in the living room’s excessively loud ticking, which usually comforts me, I found it missing. One of the great ironic events in sourthern tradition, when someone dies the household clock is forced to halt, to bring the family luck and to allow the soul to pass peacefully. Beyond my aunt asking me to go for a walk with her, and finding myself physically unable to I don’t recall much else about the morning.
The other day I decided to repeat my steps of that morning, returning to the same spot at which I froze up 12 years prior. I wasn’t awake at the exact hour it originally happened, but if I would have been I probably would have attempted to repeat it then. I sat down at the point of my original freeze for nearly half an hour to reflect on the day of her death and the things that have happened over the past 12 years. My grandmother was a big influence in my life, and perhaps my role model then, and maybe even now? Like the clock, many things in my life stopped then. I stopped being artistic, creative and my desire to do things outdoors, such as gardening.
After all of this time, and all of my attempts to move forward, I think I have finally managed to get a good start on it.

Reflection on Quote: December 6, 2006

This quote reminds me that we all fail to know ourselves at some point and we should strive to talk to ourselves enough and acknowledge all that is true in our worlds, no matter how dark or negative it may be. It is one distinct reality to be not truthful externally, but quite another when it isn’t possible to face yourself in the mirror because you have no clue what will be looking back at you.

Reconciling the Journals

My GITI journal has large gaps in time and lots of changes in format, the blog misses a lot of major events and isn’t that accurate because of the fact that it is outward facing. I am having a hard time opening up fully to either myself in my personal journal in GITI or my public blog (friends?). I don’t like the closed person I have become.