Uh oh. I’ve been up for half an hour and I’m already cold. This does not bode well for the rest of the day.
(6:55 p.m.)
Today has been a pretty good day, I must say, despite the fact that I’ve been cold for most of it. In fact, my fingers are tingling now as I type, trying desperately to warm up from the chill outside. I complained to Carter about the cold this morning, then realized to my amusement that he’s not exactly the best person to complain to about this particular subject, seeing as how he spends his weeks in Pittsburgh where the high for the day is lower than the low here. Ah well.
I am really pumped about my group assignment for E206, a project class I am taking this quarter where we learn how to design and build — from scratch — a simple control system. I am in the “wire walker” group with Aaron, Mike, and Steve, three people who I know well and really enjoy. I know working with them will be fun. Right now we’re thinking of making some sort of balancing beam, where corrections will be made via propellers on each end of the bar, or some sort of air thruster system. We don’t know if we’re shooting too high or if we could actually accomplish more, but we’ll find out soon enough I suppose.
My ME215 (a.k.a. read books about life and emotions and psychology and then discuss) class was really interesting today. It is neat to see how a group of people will open up when they feel comfortable, or when they feel like they won’t be judged. That’s what this class is like. For the first two hours we discussed this past week’s reading assignment, a book called “The Adjusted American.” If you ever want to gain some alternately pessimistic and insightful observations about the needs, wants and emotions of a so-called “adjusted” American person such as yourself, iI highly recommend the book. Even though I didn’t agree with everything said, I still was able to find some situations where I could easily identify myself…you know, the sort of thought where you go “hey, wait, I do that sometimes!”
The most potent example for me was the story of a housewife who has been at home the entire rainy day cooking and cleaning and running errands and dealing with her children. Later that night the children have finally gone to bed and she has a moment of peace and quiet. She is cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen when her husband finally gets home from work and says “you still haven’t finished the dishes??” At which point the wife bursts into tears. The point is that all day she has been stressed out and anxious and all she can think of is what an outsider would disdainfully think of her as they observed her actions, and so when her husband returns and voices her negative thoughts about herself, she breaks down. The book’s summation of the situation says “the unfair criticism which galls is that which he directs against himself.” I think sometimes I have this same tendency to take the slightest criticism and blow it out of proportion, and that habit is something I’ve been really working on lately.
Later on, the book has another great (if unsurprising) conclusion that “most of what [the adjusted American] does is undertaken for the effect it will have on other people. Thus he imposes on himself a constant concern with what he thinks other people think he should be doing, or how other people evaluate what he has done.” Psycho-babble-ish as it may appear, in my case it is also very accurate, and yet another thing I have realized over the past few years that I am prone to doing myself.
Towards the end we did a fun activity where we sat in three groups of 7 or 8 and went around the circle asking questions…things ranging from “when was the last time you cried” to “what’s the last book you read for pleasure” to “when’s the last time you had a sleepless night?” I surprised myself with some of the things I admitted. It really is an interesting class.
