It has been a while since I’ve checked in, entirely because of school. Today marks the third of about 15 weeks down. I have so much to say about it, but I think I need to stick to a few things. You know what? It’s all follow-ups, so I’m just going to have a thought-dump here and that’ll be that.
School has completely swallowed up all of my time and focus. I think that’s fair, though I’m hoping that I’m also getting better at managing my assignments and time more generally. There is a lot of work, but what’s getting me is the huge shift in the type of work, how I go about doing the work, stuff like that. Thankfully, I’m not finding myself procrastinating or anything.
Contrary to my initial expectations, I’m actually not having trouble with Calculus. At least, not yet. The way my Calc I class is structured, it seems like as long as I keep on top of things and pay attention in class, I’ll do just fine. The pacing of the class is great, it’s three sessions each week, and each session has a smidge of homework, and it all builds on itself. Kind of perfect.
Physics has been a little harder. We have a lab each week, and the labs get a write-up. I fucked up on my first one, though not on turning it in. At least I think, I don’t know, it hasn’t been graded yet. Which is driving me slightly insane. Anyway, I didn’t know how to do the lab write-ups, so it took me way too long to get a handle on it, That compounded with all of the other work that I didn’t know how to do or have become too out of practice for. I eventually got my hands around that assignment, which is good, because the lecture homework for last week was nuts. It was technically only like 10 problems, but half of the numbered problems were actually 10 sub-problems, all work on vectors, and all so much to work through. It took me a couple hours every night for almost a week. This week’s is much lighter, and we don’t have a lab write-up. So hopefully this will be a chance to catch up.
I knew going into it that Engineering would be a lot of work, but I was not expecting that the first two weeks would be absolutely packed with research and write-ups. At this point, it seems like I might be over the hump of write-ups for this class, but I’m not sure. We have an evening seminar every week, and each gets a write-up. But I’m getting a handle on that. It was really a couple of back-to-back research and planning projects that got me. I think that starting next week, we’ll actually be getting into actually engineering stuff. I think we finally start on CAD, and I’m so excited for it! Oh, we did start using our notebooks. OH! I forgot to say, the tuition for the class included a special notebook. It’s this National Brand Computational Notebook https://www.officesupply.com/office-supplies/paper-pads/notebooks-pads-filler-paper/quadrille-pads/national-brand-recycled-computation-notebook-quad-sheets/p11385.html?ref=pla&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&adpos=&scid=scplp11385&sc_intid=11385&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21351603323&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzY7VBhDwARIsAFtPvBS5o52Qh8ZmKpA8jOn8HNCUHwgBno8nzWAQwOEYN1PJCWOAMbyJIikaAo7DEALw_wcB. Very fun, I’m a big fan of notebooks, and now I get to keep one as part of my professional pursuits.
English, or College Composition as it is called, is by far my easiest class. It’s not that it’s without work or merit, it’s that the way it is framed, aimed, and graded aligns perfectly with how I’ve been looking to treat my writing anyway. So we just do assignments, most of which can be started and sometimes completely in class. So much of it is reading comprehension and composition competence, so as long as I put in the effort, and I do, I should be fine.
Fitness has fallen off a cliff. I’ve only gotten in one run this week, I might get in another this weekend. It was about the same last week. I can find the time, and I usually have the energy, but I was so worried about being behind on my assignments, that I just locked in on those. I don’t know, I think I have to not do that going forward. Like, unless I have something absolutely critical with a tight deadline, I think I need to just carve out that hour for a run and deal with it. We’ll see how next week goes.
My project queue is almost entirely on hold. Same with regular maintenance, which is something I need to keep in mind. I’m a little salty that I haven’t found much time to work on my mobile app coding, story writing, tinkering, makering, etc., but what I really need to make time for is to sweep, mop, vacuum, and wipe stuff down. And I still need a haircut, oil change, and to re-up my car’s emissions inspection. In fact, I think I need to do that last one this weekend, because I think I might be overdue.
As far as my social life is concerned, I am currently in my friend’s kitchen. We used to regularly do this sort of work-from-home together thing, but we sort of fell off. I think that might have been mostly my fault, I got pretty caught up in my math rebuild in the lead-up to starting college. And class has had me completely swamped and unable to do much of anything but study since it started. So I’m extremely grateful that one of my friends set this one up. I think I’ve made enough room and lead time that, if people are getting together for games or whatever this weekend, I should be able to join them. Though if people aren’t, I should probably take the chance to get some rest.
I have about 12 weeks left to go for this semester. That reads wrong, like I’m dreading this, but I’m not sure how else to phrase things. I’m very excited for this, but I am also extremely anxious and worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. So I’m just reminding myself that this isn’t permanent, other people have done this, and I just need to keep up this level of intensity for a limited time.
All of that is really just scratching the surface, but I think that’s all I’ll get to today. I”m not sure when I’ll check in next or what I’ll be following up on when I do, but the plan is to keep doing something. These recent life changes have really been something, man. Someday, I think it’ll be pretty interesting to look back on all of this.