I am still alive

Yeah, I am still alive. Things are going well in my life. I am writing this while I am waiting for the coffee to brew. Yes, I brought freshly ground coffee before I left and even if that is almost two weeks ago it is still way better than most of what you get in stores. When my parents come I think I'll ask them to bring loads of coffee. It seems a bit redundant to get coffee from the old world when I am over here, but back home I know where to get the coffee I like and they also burn the beans the way Norwegians like them.
This last week and a half I have been having a lot of girlfriend time, a lot of friend time in general actually, and it is very nice. I had been thinking about visiting Thomas this weekend but there seems like there was no easy way of getting up to him. Friend time have been very nice, we've been watching b-movie biology, a movie and a discussion every night this week. Yesterday we say GATTCA, I still like that movie a lot, even if it is full of odd little things that don't really fit. We've been watching Dr.Who, having knitting circles and so on and so forth. Really nice.
In the podcast alley, I been listening to Morevi Remastered by Tee Morris. I actually really like it. It is so far quite interesting. I have also listened quite a lot to Dragon's Landing. But I have catching up to do with Escape Pod for one.
In the big news area, I am changing major. I have decided that rather be a computer science major, engineering minor than the other way around. This means that I'll have a somewhat easier time with fullfilling the requirements and I can focus on what I want to do rather than what I have to do. I can take more classes that focus on robotics and AI than I could other wise.
I also have joined the fencing team, as an epee fencer. I still have a lot to learn before I am any good. But I am sure I'll get there. But that means loads of practice. Also there is Hapkido. I took Sibs (I should really call her Miss Duffey now) class and it was a lot of fun even if I do blue belt flops instead of proper rolling falls. She is planning on starting a club, so I'll do that too. Loads of exercise. Which is good for me I guess.

Anyway Coffee is done and I should get back to coloring the comic

Long long week... I am finally taking a little break, I have been doing homework for most of the day, apart from waking up real late for lunch, but that was mainly Claire's fault. But overall day has been nice, now I am going to do some artsy stuff for a little while and then see if I can kick Sibs into more Trigun.
Went to game yesterday. Was very interesting. Adrian ended up in jail, not a big surprise there but for once he hadn't really done anything bad. They had gone into Jessica's house and after getting rid of the damned woman, checked out the basement where they found Faith's mother. And Faith's mother was in such a state that I really have realized that Kay is as good as I am about torturing NPCs. Though from what I have seen she goes a lot more physical torture than mental as I do when it is called for in a game. But yes, Adrian got her out of it, sent the other people home and then called the cops and an ambulance, and of course he got taken in for questioning. And then the painkiller high went away, and he realized he really was shot in the shoulder, and had ripped said half healed shoulder seriously. So now I am imagining him in a jail cell, you know the kind they put drunk people in, curled up in a corner muttering about pain.

Updated Todo List
Final programming project (in flash/actionscript)
Final project presentation
Final datastructure presenteatation (I am talking about disjoint sets)
Assignment 10 (graphs)
Design Lab (I am making a circuit that only lets though frequencies of 2000Hz and above) + labreport for said baby
Design Lab presentation
Lab report for chem x2
Done: Chem exam (self scheduled)
Math problemset x3
Engieneering problem set x2 (or 3)
Engineering quiz x2
Chem problem set

Chem exam
Engieneeing exam
Physics exam
Computer science exam

Register for j-term classes
Return keys
Figure out what I am giving the following people: Dad, Anna, Sister, Farmor, Cheryl, Thomas, Bunny, Danna, Claire, Sibs, Miriam,
Shop Christmas gifts (send me a wishlist people)
Mail gifts to the ones I wont see
Buy bus ticket
Repay part of the loan
Find my paycheck
Go to work
Go to game
Done: Talk to Kep about gaming space next semester
Send Christmas cards

Pack
Clean room properly

FUCK!

Letter I got yesterday:
"Dear Tonje,

I want to let you know that I have been asked to submit names of
students who are currently earning below a C- in EGR 220. You are
currently failing the course, and I am submitting this to your class
Dean as requested. It seems to me that you understand parts of the
material but have not kept up with the homework and therefore don't
always earn the points you might. I encourage you to go over the
work to date and bring questions you have to office hours.

I am also concerned that you missed class today, as we started a new
topic that is often difficult for students.

Best,
Prof. ......."

If you wonder why I was out of it, that was why.. Yesterday was not a good day at all. First I discovered that my work supervisor had not approved my hours so my paycheck was only for my other job, which was on 12 dollars. And then this... To make things worse I was tried and stressed so...

There were some highlights though.
1: Steam Punk Magazine. Great fun
2: Payday Sushi, Kay paid
3: Game, fun, but Adrian did not get to shoot something, damn... Heh, it is fun playing trigger happy characters, I rarly do...
4: Talked to Andy for half an hour about gaming and circus. Apperently he is one of the GMs for Deathfest
5: Hot chocolate given to me by Claire, because of emotional breakdown

Today have been better, I have been studying and playing chess and that is it. I am supposed to go to a birthday party tonight. Don't really want to, but I guess I can. Chess was fun, I was Crowly from Good Omens. And I got a ton of great pictures. Guess who is finally updating her dA account. I have a bunch of good ones of Madison as the Doctor and Lizz and Queen Latifa (I am not sure), and some of Sibs as Vash. Anyway, you'll see. Anyway, it felt good taking pictures again.

Oh and good music, Abney Park... I like steam punk and want to make a steam punk costume.

At Work

So I am sitting at work, 20 minutes left of todays TA session in computer science 1. We're three TAs and so far we have had one person come and ask questions, I feel a bit redundant. But I know they are going to come in a few weeks time. So, I was working on my own programming assignment, due Wednesday at midnight. I am currently one error away from compiling, but my brain shut of and I have no clue what the error message means. We're working in Java, an language I started learning on Thursday and the assignment is to make an interactive program that lets the user play Rock, Paper, Scissors with the computer. At least that was part 2, part 1 was real easy, ' make a interactive program that takes an integer n from the user and returns n!'. Easy enough. Part 2 is more of a challenge, and I haven't even started the last part of it which is to make the program loop so that the player can play over and over again until they want to exit. That requires a while loop and a break statement, should be easy, I am just not sure where to put it to make it look smooth. I might add a ' help' option, just to make it smooth. I hope the teacher won't kill me for that.

This term is going to be though. My classes are interesting, but a lot of work, and I really need to do well in them, because I need to improve my GPA. And next term I am looking at 3 engineering classes and one English class. Not going to be any easier. I am very exited about Circuit Theory.

R+ and Grades

So, my grades are out. I did not fail Chinese, that is pretty amazing. I was prepared for having to do another language. This means that I'll have to do my German on my own. Well, I can do that. Comp Sci and Econ: both B's, well that is what I get for being cocky... Doesn't matter now. But I am going to have to focus more on rasing my GPA next trem, it is too low. If I don't do this I won't get the grad school I want. So I am taking it easier next trem. Compsci 2, Chem intro, Physics for engineers, Circut theory (egr) and fencing. Only 18 credits. Compared to the 21 I did this term. Mm.. Yeah I'll become the über-nerd next trem, study and game and that is it. Maybe some poi for fun. I had my year of relaxing, now it is time to get back to the studies.

These days I am running on a Rammstein overdose. They are rapidly becomming one of my favorite bands, not like Nightwish, but just a step below. I blame it on Shadowrun. Gritty cyberpunk and InduMetal works very well together. And I have had a sweet stuff from our fave german bad boys fro years. Since I was 13 I think. Holy fuck, I have been liking this band for the last 7 years...Time flies. It was Du Hast that got me into them. I had just started learning German and was loving the fact that I got parts of the lyrics. So yeah, loads and loads of R+. Los is my new fave song, or almost. Wishmaster still wins that title.

Almost done

Riddle:
One where none should be,
or maybe where two should be,
seeking out purity,
in the kings trees.

Rant:
I am sitting in the science library here, we are finishing our final report. We have been here for three hours. But we are nearing the end. This is the last little bit, in twelve hours we are not an offical group anymore. Sort of sad, we have been through so much and been so fustrated and stressed and happy and all of that together. Or at least three of us have, but we are the group. I am getting really tired and I would like to say good night to Hope, but she'll probably be asleep when I come back. Darn...

At last I can rest

Or well almost..

Riddles:
Dec. 10
Creatures of power, creatures of grace,
Creatures of beauty, creatures of strength.
As for their lives,
they set everything's pace,
For all things must come to live
under their emerald embrace. . .
Either in their life, or in their death.

Dec. 11
Touching one, yet holding two,
it is a one link chain
binding those who keep words true,
'til death rent it in twain.

Rant:
Finally the elephant design is done, or at least very very done. All I need to do is varnish the elephant on Friday. Our presentation is due tomorrow and our final report on thursday, individual portfolio on the 20th. I am content, the feeling of contentness(?) setteling over me, sort of when my EE was done and handed in or my physics exam was over. When something matters so much to me and I finally finish them, I get this feeling. I am very happy with the final design, it was some mistakes that is true, but I think it is a very good design considering that this was our first ever engineering class and we had no clue what we were doing half of the time.
In ten days time I'll leave for Norway, I am thinking about leaving NoHo on the 20th (I might get a ride with Cathrine) and stay the night in Anton's place, I wonder if he acctually has a place... Only thing is the portfolio and the math take home, the portfolio is due on the 20th os that is not so much an issue as the math is, but I'll think I'll do it anyway.

EDIT:
And oh yeah, I forgot. To people who flinch at my bad grammar: I used to care, but it hindred the flow of writing and thus went against one of my fundemental ideas about this blog, that it should allow me to be more open and not hide behind masks. If I force myself to think about grammar I edit what I write in a way that becomes a mask. If you really can't read this becasue of the grammar/misspelling/typoes, I am sorry, but I do not function in a way that allows me to write the way I want to and at the same time be able to do it perfectly. And I have a hard time spotting grammar mistakes and spelling mistakes, I always have.

So tired...

Riddles:
6. Dec
He who makes it needs it not
He who buys it wants it not
He who uses it feels it not

7 Dec.
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man who had seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

Rant:
I am so tried, very very tired. Yesterday we were working on the Engineering Project, but one of my group members did not show up. As of yesterday, she had been to two of our build sessions and late for all of them, she have not done the things we asked her to do. We asked her to get us some tubing we needed last wednesday, she got it TODAY, over a week later. She have not picked up the gitar strings we asked her to do a long time ago. That is not only it, I believe that if we had been four sets of hands instead of three we could have been done or close to.. I am very very annoyed, I will soon explode at her and my poor group members have to pick up the pieces. Honestly if she is late tomorrow, I think I am going to take a yelling session on her. I did not come back to my room untill after dinner to start my homework and by then I was so mentally and physically tired that I could not really do anything. I worked, rather unproductivly, untill 9.30 when Ulrika had invited me to come and celebrate Finland's National Day. Right before this I had sent my Engineering Teacher an email about how annoyed I was with my group member, if she get a good grade for this course because the group does a good job I am going to loose all my faith in my teacher. I was in the mood to punch a whole in a wall. So Ulrika and Dee sat me down, gave me a glass of Finlandia and Red Bull and Finish Chocolate and told me to tell the whole story. Drinking and ranting about it made me feel somewhat better. So long live Finland, home of the best Vodka and Metal.

Another Cup of Coffee, Rethinking my future in Engineering

An essay I wrote in Engineering, it was supposed to be about how we feel about engineering, where we fit in etc. I thought it would make an interesting and diffrent post.

I am sitting at the campus café again. I haven’t been studying in here for a while, the engineering project have taken over my days. I am liking it however, the building process is quite fun at this stage. When I started ‘Engineering for Everyone’ in September, I had already decided what I wanted to do. I wanted to become a robotics engineer and build robots to work under extreme conditions like the ocean floor or in space. I still want to build robots, but some of my views on it have changed. I also have begun to define what sort of robots I would like to build now that I have started to realize that the dream of robotics is actually within reach and I can get there. I have also confirmed many of my earlier, such as the one that I would not do too well in a management job.

Over this year I have learned to look at engineering in ways I did not before. One such example is the reading and discussion on the Rede Lecture by C.P. Snow . Snow talks about how the two cultures, science and humanities, have been in a spilt, a war almost, for a long time. He also talks about how allplied sciences such as engineering are among the worst. I do not agree with this point. It is my belief that a few disciplines, engineering, economics and physiology to mention a few, draw upon both humanities and science. All three of them draw upon knowledge of how humans each other and their environment and science and scientific methods. Engineers need to know how the users of what they are designing will interact it the design. We got to experience these ourselves during the design project. Before I never imagined that there would be so much interaction with the client and the users.

In one of our early discussions in engineering we were talking about the different disciplines of engineering and among other things the percentage of women in the disciplines. Computer Engineering has very few women, and I have yet to figure out if that is a good or bad thing for me. However I think that more women in the field can only be good, I believe that men and women have some fundamental differences in the way they think. Judging from the people I know, they seem more able to focus at one thing at a time and women seem more able to think about many things at the same time. Having an engineering team consisting of both of those ways of think can only be good, as engineering is so much about thinking about problems in new and different ways. One could also insure that different ways of thinking is represented by using personality tests such as the Brigg Meyers test. Generally I have always been very skeptical of employers asking the works to take personality tests, but after taking the Brigg Myers test and experiencing how my group worked and feeling that I could make more sense of how we functioned together, I now think that test such as Brigg Meyers test might be good. I also believe that I am a dreamer or a visionary; I believe we can make a lot what you see in science fiction come true in the not so far future. Not only do I believe we can do it, I want to be one of the people doing it. In my essay in the beginning of the year I talked about how I wanted to build robots. A long standing dream of mine has been to build an Artificial Intelligence. Many people see it as an impossible dream, I don’t think it is. There have already been many attempts, such as Honda’s Asimo and with computer technology developing at the speed it has in the last few years, I believe humanoid robots will be a lot more common in a few years.

Over the course of this design project I have realized a few things about myself and what type of work I want to do. I do not want to be a team leader or manager. What I want to do is build and invent, and while all the paperwork is necessary, it is also very boring and time consuming. I also exprienenced that it can be limiting for the creative side of the design process. When we were in the middle of the writing of the Letter of Intent and the Proposal, I discovered that I was having problems with coming up with new ideas. I am assuming that in a team of engineers someone on the team is assigned the task of writing the important papers. The way we were doing it in the groups for the design projects, with everyone doing a bit each, seems was alright for such a small group, but I feel that it would be in efficient for a bigger team.

Over the course of this year I have started to think about my dream job. As I said in my first narrative I want most of all to design robots for use in space and following on this thought I have mostly been thinking of working for NASA, however not being an American Citizen there are several issues with this. Earlier in the year I was also thinking about working in the Norwegian petroleum industry. It has been estimated that Norway only have oil for some 50 years , but there is apparently coal underneath the oil. The only problem is that the oil and coal is in the ocean floor Norway is going to need engineers to build machines and robots to operate at these depths, since we now have seen the effects of the deep sea diving that was needed to start up the Norwegian petroleum adventure in the 1960s. When I started this course I had this kind of work in mind as a back up. Now however, after serious consideration and watching “An Inconvenient Truth”, I have changed my mind about working in that industry. The movie brought back some issues I had not considered. If you look at a map, Norway is about as far north as Greenland, the only thing that is keeping us from being a block of ice is the Gulf Stream. I feel that it would be unethical for me to be one of the engineers that facilitate further burning of fossil fuel and further destruction of the environment. Honestly, what good does it do to be the richest land in the worlds, money that we got by selling oil in the first place, if our country is buried beneath a mile of ice? Then I few days ago I read an interesting article, apparently Norway have the worlds main supply of Thorium , which can be used to produce cleaner energy than oil or coal. It also produces less waste than Uranium. From what I have read, this seems like something I can support.

Over the course of this year, I have been unsure if this was what I want to do. Is engineering really it? I am still not a hundred percent sure, but close. I have realized that it will take a lot of effort and will require that not only I but also my friends accept that I might not have that much of a social life. But with some time management it should be possible to fit friends, fun and engineering together, also because they overlap. I have become better friends with my group than I thought I would and working on the design project is fun even if it is a lot of work. Some of my morals have changed; I have gone from being willing to do anything for money to realizing that for some things the long term cost will be too great.

Math test

I am in the middle of a take home math test, in which I have to do a lot of work in good old QBASIC (from '85), imagine staring at a blue screen for the last two hours. Also QB does not like my keyboard, it reads it as a Russian keyboard, odd. I also discovered that I only handed in less than half of the math homework I am supposed to. Ops. So loads of math this weekend. On top of rewriteing something for Engineering, doing Engineering research, some Histor reading and the usual Chinese homework. Apart from Math I think I am doing quite well in my subjects, I had a Chinese test I though I flunked (60-70 of 100), but when I got it back yesterday I discovered that I had gotten 94, I have no clue of I managed that. I was also in the forge yesterday, got to play with steel heated untill it was glowing, so much fun. I aslo skipped an evening engineering lecture to go see An Inconvinient Truth with Hope. Interesting movie. The rest of SSFFS is at the Ren Faire and I am stuck in a class room. Yay!

Drinking Coffee elsewhere.

As I was finshing my mocha about an hour ago, I suddenly remembered the short stories we read with Brian, Term Paper Artist and Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Both of them very odd stories, both very Brian. However those stories does not relate to this post, exept for the coffee.

I just had fall break, today was the first regular school day. Hard, yet not really that hard. I have been good this break, up at nine(ish) and to bad at regular times. What made so insanely tired today is a combination of Anton calling and waking me last night when I had just fallen asleep and me getting a cold. I hate being sick like this, not sick enough to skip school yet I don't wanna work. The fact that I had a Chinese test today and got a take home math test is not a very good motivation. Fall break was far too nice. Oh for those of you that don't know(or have figured out), I have a girlfriend now, her name is Hope.

Mmmm, I want more coffee... Right now I want loud music, large amounts of coffee, an computer with photoshop, an Rebel XT and some lighting equipment. I have some ideas.