Classes

I AM here to learn, right? Well, if my parents ask, then tell them that. No, seriously. My #1 goal here is to further my knowledge in the field of aerospace engineering and acquire the skills necessary in the field. With that in mind, I attended my classes for the first time this week.....

Monday, Wednesday, Friday @ 11:00 am. Physics III.

Continuing on the path of physics that I have been on since freshman year, this semester we will study simple harmonic motion, waves, optics, and even dive into a little modern physics(relativity included!). We just started with SHM, and it's very fascinating to me, as are the rest of the topics in this class. I look forward to the labs associated with this class.

Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Business Ethics.

This is an online course, so no traveling to school for this one. The syllabus and instructions are pretty straight forward. It involves alot of reading, and much more typing and responding to responses. Hopefully, by the end of this semester I will have learned a little something about ethics in the business world.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 9:30am. Engineering Mechanics II: Dynamics.

Basically an extension from EM1, Statics, in which all the systems of loads/supports were in a zero-acceleration frame. Dynamics now involves acceleration, so the simple mathematical concepts we used in Statics don't work so well now. We can't just take the sum of all the forces or moments to be zero now; they add up to "m*a", and that can include all kinds of forces. I'm very excited about this course. We're getting closer and closer to real-world situations.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 12:30pm. Mechanics of Materials.

Building off of what I have learned in Statics and Dynamics, Mechanics of Materials is focused on the actual members that make up the systems we studied in EM1 and EM2. Things like cross-sectional area, stress/strain relationships, torques, and beam deflection, among many other things, will be studied. Yet another very cool class I am very excited about.

Tuesday, Thursday @ 3:30pm. Early U.S. History.

Quite possibly my favorite portion of history of any kind. I already love the subject, but I believe my professor will make me appreciate even more. He looks like a skinnier version of the old man that helped Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. He's very enthusiastic about the subject, which is a definite plus. I came into the classroom for my first class, but I didn't see him initially; all I saw was a pair of leather pull-over chaps, a leather jacket, and a leather cap on the table. I knew this guy must be a biker. Sure enough, he spent half the class talking about his two bikes, "Red" and "Hun," and it was actually an engrossing story. Needless to say, this class should be a fun time.

So there you have it. My classes of Spring 2006. It should be a very intellectually stimulating semester, haha.

In other news...
I was walking back to my car after my Early US History class on Thursday, and I was about to pass the library. I noticed a short, stocky fellow carrying a box of books into the backdoor of the library. He looked familiar, but I wasn't sure. I then heard him cry out "Hank!!!" Well, that immediately narrowed it down to who the guy was because there is only a handful of people on this planet that call me Hank. That list includes Brandon Hodges, Scrapper, and my baseball guys from Grenada. I knew it wasn't Hodges or Scrapper, so it had to have been one of my baseball teammates. And it was. It was Ben Vaughn. I hadn't seen the guy in FOREVER, and we must have just talked there for half an hour, catching up on where old friends were and how they were doing. Turns out that Ben is rooming with Michael Hammond, a good friend from Grenada that I played soccer with, played in the GHS band with, went to Switzerland with, and even went to the same church with in Grenada. They live in the Crossgates Apartments, which is RIGHT across from Avalon. I can see our hanging out in the near future. Ben even said that they enjoy beach volleyball. Looks like Trevor and I have another duo to compete against :)

I am home this weekend. Dad just left for a 2-week business trip in Virginia, so I came home to keep mom company for a few days. I also needed to pick up my hockey equipment, so this was a good time to come home. Richard Wright had an extra hockey bag, and he gave it to me before I left for Canton. The bag is extra-large, so it's going to be perfect for my rather large goalie equipment. Also, now I can store my equipment(in the bag) in our balcony storage room, so my jeep will remain free of the used-hockey-equipment smell. Yay.

The season starts on January 29th, and I am obviously excited about playing. I have been absent from the league for over a year, so I'm anxious. I plan on somehow getting pictures taken of my playing this season, because I believe that at least 50% of my readers don't believe I play hockey, haha. So expect some proof this semester! haha.

Also, upon advice from a certain someone, I have decided to teach myself all I can about automobiles. No, I don't plan on becoming the next John Horne in the subject, but it has been suggested I take up the subject, and I tend to agree. I am going to pick up a good book on the material this weekend.

Mom and I are going to go see Glory Road tomorrow night. I am pretty sure it is going to play out JUST like Remember the Titans(one, the plots are pretty identical, and two, both movies done by Jerry Bruckheimer), but I like the actors in the movie, so we'll see how it ends up. Besides, it gives mom and me an excuse to get out of the house, haha.

Good hockey tomorrow: Detroit @ Colorado. Yet, for some reason NBC is going to carry Philadelphia @ Pittsburgh instead. WTF. Yeh, ok, I can see the rationale in that....

"Instead of showing two teams who are playoff bound, on hot streaks, and have a storied rivalry, let's show a number one team against a last place team"

Yeh. That sounds brilliant guys. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh: 0 Stanley Cups in the past 10 years. Colorado and Detroit: 5. Do the math, NBC. It's not that hard.

and with that, I'm out.

-H