Busy

Things are starting to pick up academically, to the point that I've had to turn down invitations to social functions (that I actually wanted to go to, rather than as a lame excuse). The career fair is this week, adding to the load, but overall I think I'm managing it quite well.

As a summary, I'm not sure what information is really relevant. All I'm thinking about is my specific assignments—diffuser design in propulsion, the second homework in my space class. And the RASC-AL meeting tomorrow. 

Oh, and I finished the main text of Manned Spacecraft Design Principles today. There are some useful appendices that I intend to read through before calling it finished, but I'm done with the bulk of the material. Expect a review sometime soon-ish.

I don't know when the next serious blog post will be. Could be a week, could be Halloween. We'll see. School is both more important and urgent.

Week Two

This last week went pretty swimmingly from a strictly academic perspective, but we had wallpaper removed in the hall and that was a bit of a disruption. I'm glad that that work is basically over. Dad is doing some touchup around the edges, but as far as I'm concerned he's welcome to it. I spent far too many hours doing that last summer and fall to think about going back to it anytime soon.

I'm still a little sick, but getting better. Allergies are a confounding factor, though those haven't really gotten to bad yet.

This week, my main focus is optimizing my morning and evening routines to make more time in the day to study. So far, the actual homework situation is insignificant compared to undergrad, but a habit for reading and research will serve me will in the coming months. Making more room for that—and for high-quality recreation—is a good thing to focus on.

Labor Day Weekend

I guess I was so worked up about classes starting that I forgot to do a weekly review last Sunday. I kept my streak seven months, I think. I'm not going back into the archives to check for certain.

In any case, the first week of classes went well! I think I'm going to get a lot out of these courses. Thanks to new information I got from my erstwhile- (and to-be) classmates during the School of Engineering orientation, I made a last-minute change to my schedule, but I'm not regretting it so far. The new faculty in the department is teaching an experimental class that may or may not be offered again, whereas the course I switched out of appears to be offered every fall semester. Unless something drastic happens, I'll take it next autumn.

Speaking of, it feels like autumn. I caught a cold from Mom (or at one of the orientations), and about simultaneously the weather got cold and rainy. Coming home from the first day of classes, taking notes at the sun went down at an unreasonably early hour, drinking echinacea tea and blowing my nose occasionally—it was a stark difference from where I was a few weeks ago.

Also, Dad did notice my new glasses, after six days. I'm finally getting used to them myself.

I've got the house mostly to myself this weekend—Mom and Dad made plans that I would love to participate in, but from experience I know that big obligations at the start of the semester are academically unconscionable. Given how much I've gotten done, and yet how much I need to do tomorrow, I stand by this decision. I'll be in much better psychological shape for it.

We're probably having home improvement work done at some point this week, too, so there's that on my plate. How supervision will be my responsibility depends on when the contractor finally finishes the previous project. I'm a little concerned that I haven't heard anything yet, but then again, I wasn't in a hurry to do this at all.