....Sixteen tons and what do you get?

OK, so don't take this as me complaining about the job I started today. I think it's really cool, I just felt that the reference was mildly, tangentially applicable. So what do I do? I prepare and keep track of samples of various stainless steel alloys. This means I get to haul out 30 lb rolled bars and cut chunks off with a big old ban-saw from the sixties and then file off burrs and then punch an ID code onto them with a hammer and dies. And I get paid for that. How much? I have no idea, presumable at least minimum wage in PA ($5.15, the federal minimum wage).

Anyway, steering away from the coolness that is Materials Science...
Am I like prime AEPi material? Honestly, they just arn't leaving me alone! Like today, 5:30ish I was walking back into 'schlag after a 'hard day's' work at the lab and they were just leaving and they were pretty insistant that I come over to the house for dinner. Again, I appreciate the offer, but do they not realize that since I've yet to show up for anything they've told me about, that I'm not interested? I can only assume they have very few pledges from last semester and they have a quota to fill. Or maybe they just like me that much from the....3(?) hours total I was at/with AEPi during rush last semester. The problem is they now know where I live. Curses!

So, anyway. Today I woke up and it was snowing and 19 degrees out. It was amazing outside. I managed to get up and out in time for breakfast. Calc went fine....we're working on integrals via partial fractions. I get the concept but so far I'm a little hazy on the algebra that gets you from a nasty polynomial over another nasty polynomial and a sum of much smaller nicer fractions. I might even go to SI (supplemental instruction) tonight @ 8:30 to see what that's like and to do some practice partial-fraction problems. Especially ones with long/synthetic division. That came in Algebra 2 after Goodman's "Logs of Fun" comment, which was the downfall of that class. So, like many other things I should have learned (like matrices and such) I'm fuzzy on it.

Physics was pretty cool. We spent the whole lecture talking about the mechanics of sparks. Concluding with the principle that engineers get paid good money benefitting from the sweat of physicists' labor. Suckers.

Econ was most amusing. Frame made up units of 'utility' called 'uttiles.' I think that's how Beuhl spelled it, 'cept he used an umlaut, and I don't know how to type one in blogger. I just kept laughing anytime Frame said it. I'm having trouble keeping a straight face in that class. Certainly makes it much more bearable, though.

MechE was another lecture on random MechE applications. This time Howie talked about space robots. I was cool with it.
Then I went to work as described above and now I'm here, just about to head out to dinner followed by physics course center followed (possibly) by 21122 SI.
Toodles.