Monday, March 29, 2010
tests
The summer is almost here and I can not wiat. These last two weeks since break have been quite a challenge with physics test fri and then for me 2 engineering tests and a chemistry test. Yesterday, I spent 5 hrs doing my airs assignmnet for chemistry, only to realize that the reason why I was having difficulty is because information was actually missing from the problem statement. But, what I didn't realize was that you had to look that information, the Ka or Kb values up in the chemistry textbook. When I found this out I couldn't decided if I was furiated with myself for being so stupid, or if I was just relieved that after 6-7 hours I was finally able to get a hundred on the assignment. I don't even know how the aris assignments plays into my grade. They are not on the gradebook for that class, but I'm hoping they will get added on at the end and that it those hours yesterday were not a complete waste of time. The homework for the class is worth 10%, and the actual homeworks for my chemistry class can be quite challenging at times because my professor's goal in life is to trick us. He says he's preparing us for mcats, but I what I want to know is why I'm preparing for mcats in this class when I don't plan on even taking them. Thats the one downside about professor Trivedi. I love his teaching style, but I wish he would stop being so tricky, in hopes to prepare people for mcats when less than half the class would be taking them. Right now, I don't even need the second half of chemistry, the class I am in now, for my major. I only took it because I might have done biosystems engineering. But, now that I'm not, I really don't know why I'm still in it. I enjoy the class and understand the material, but even if you understand the material chances are your going to fall for a few of trivedi's traps, and thats what your graded on. I hate tests. I'm such a bad test taker, I always fall for the tricks. I would much much much rather just do some huge project of 20page paper than study for a test. Becuase when you write a paper or do a project there are no tarps that you can fall into.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Mound Bayou
Never mind about the last blogg being for 3/3. My blogg is getting all mixed up and confusing, I guess thats what one gets for trying to do it ahead of time. Well, to make sure I'm on top of the number of blogs I need here is another. GROUP MEMBERS: skip the following parenthesis its a question for Julia. (Julia, if Iwrote 2 blogs one week because I didn't think I'd have time following week would you count the 2nd blog as the blog for the week with out? I hope so because that is what I have done. I have also written mulitple blogs for a week, but they do not amount to 500 words at one time, but overall there is way more than 500 words, is that ok?)
Anyways, over spring break I was down at Mississippi, and the area was so much different to what I was use to . We'd be driving along the rural highway through fields of flat farmland and see a random abandon home. Actually, we thought it was abandoned because no one could possibly live in such a structure that was on the brink of collapsing! Seriously, most of the home had caved in roofs or slanted porches. Then, someone would walk out of this home, a home we thought had been abandoned!! This totally shocked me, especially being an engineer I have a pretty good idea of what is structually sound and what isn't. The people of this are would live in homes that didn't just look bad in appearance, but the stabilty of the sturcture was bad. Even in the best kept home there'd be chipped paint or an over grown yard, but down there that was normal. In the town where we worked at, Mound Bayou, was even more worse than the rest of the area. 85% of the town lived off welfare, and most of the citizens were unempolyed because they could not afford a car or gas to get to work in the next town over. Because everyone in the town was so poor, all of the home were run down. Closed buisness would remain there, the skeleton of the buildings are shadows of the once thriving town. This town was the first town to be established by free slaves in Mississippi after the civil war. It was and still is mainly an African American community, that back in its hay day served as refuge from the Ku Klux Klan. After a couple of bad farming years and depressions and recession the town turned into the very poor area that it currently is. If something happens to a building, abandoned, burned down, storm damages, its just left there. There were more than a handful of lots of where a fire had taken place. Nothing had been done, the building burned down entirely and was left there to look like the fire had just happened only yesterday. This blew my mind away, that these people could just let the remains sit. A hotel had burned down many, many years ago, and the pipes were still in the air, twisted up! Some buildings were boarded up and some weren't. The ones that werent boarded up are now frames with half the walls down and the roof caved in. I had done a service project in New Orleans summer after my sophmore year, and some of these lots looked as though they too had been attacked by hurricane Katrina. (they had not; although Mississippi did received a lot of damages Mound Bayou is located closer to Arkansa than the Gulf of Mexico so the destruction of the buildings was not caused by the hurricane)
As we drove through this town, I wanted nothing more than to just get out of the van and start fixing up the lots. It bothered me so much to just see burned down lots sit there. The whole town was like an archeological site of ruins. But, actually the whole town is an archeological site in the sense that there is a lot of history (the town shouldn't be in ruins though equivalent to that of settlements form the 1600s and 1700s though). I want to go back next year, and hopefully be able to work on those lots. Unfortunately though, not to many people repeat trips, so I do not know if that is because they want to try somehting new or because you have to. By other trips I mean that my trip was one of several Alternative Spring Break Trips. There were also trips to Chicago, Memphis, Flint, and Mexico. There was one to Hadi as well, but it was canceled/postponed due to the earthquake. I want to go to Mexico one year, but I think that will be for junior or senior year. If I can't go to Mexico I think my second choice would be Chicago, but I leave that decision to next year.
Anyways, over spring break I was down at Mississippi, and the area was so much different to what I was use to . We'd be driving along the rural highway through fields of flat farmland and see a random abandon home. Actually, we thought it was abandoned because no one could possibly live in such a structure that was on the brink of collapsing! Seriously, most of the home had caved in roofs or slanted porches. Then, someone would walk out of this home, a home we thought had been abandoned!! This totally shocked me, especially being an engineer I have a pretty good idea of what is structually sound and what isn't. The people of this are would live in homes that didn't just look bad in appearance, but the stabilty of the sturcture was bad. Even in the best kept home there'd be chipped paint or an over grown yard, but down there that was normal. In the town where we worked at, Mound Bayou, was even more worse than the rest of the area. 85% of the town lived off welfare, and most of the citizens were unempolyed because they could not afford a car or gas to get to work in the next town over. Because everyone in the town was so poor, all of the home were run down. Closed buisness would remain there, the skeleton of the buildings are shadows of the once thriving town. This town was the first town to be established by free slaves in Mississippi after the civil war. It was and still is mainly an African American community, that back in its hay day served as refuge from the Ku Klux Klan. After a couple of bad farming years and depressions and recession the town turned into the very poor area that it currently is. If something happens to a building, abandoned, burned down, storm damages, its just left there. There were more than a handful of lots of where a fire had taken place. Nothing had been done, the building burned down entirely and was left there to look like the fire had just happened only yesterday. This blew my mind away, that these people could just let the remains sit. A hotel had burned down many, many years ago, and the pipes were still in the air, twisted up! Some buildings were boarded up and some weren't. The ones that werent boarded up are now frames with half the walls down and the roof caved in. I had done a service project in New Orleans summer after my sophmore year, and some of these lots looked as though they too had been attacked by hurricane Katrina. (they had not; although Mississippi did received a lot of damages Mound Bayou is located closer to Arkansa than the Gulf of Mexico so the destruction of the buildings was not caused by the hurricane)
As we drove through this town, I wanted nothing more than to just get out of the van and start fixing up the lots. It bothered me so much to just see burned down lots sit there. The whole town was like an archeological site of ruins. But, actually the whole town is an archeological site in the sense that there is a lot of history (the town shouldn't be in ruins though equivalent to that of settlements form the 1600s and 1700s though). I want to go back next year, and hopefully be able to work on those lots. Unfortunately though, not to many people repeat trips, so I do not know if that is because they want to try somehting new or because you have to. By other trips I mean that my trip was one of several Alternative Spring Break Trips. There were also trips to Chicago, Memphis, Flint, and Mexico. There was one to Hadi as well, but it was canceled/postponed due to the earthquake. I want to go to Mexico one year, but I think that will be for junior or senior year. If I can't go to Mexico I think my second choice would be Chicago, but I leave that decision to next year.
Ok, So I'm not sure whether or not we had a blogg due last week or not. Since we didn't have class Monday I couldn't get clarification and assumed that the hw assignment for a blogg was to just have one by tomorrow, hopefully that is correct.
Since this is the first blogg since spring break then (or at least I hope it is) then I will share a little about what I did for break. While the campus because a ghost town Friday night, I was one of the very few people who stayed until Saturday morning, where I left for Mound Bayou, Mississippi at 6am. Why Mound Bayou or all places? I was going there on a service project with the Newman Community Catholic Campus Ministries, and in two 12 passenger vans 14 other Hokies and myself traveled for 14 hours to Mississippi.
Now to tell you everything that happened on this trip would be quite a lot for one blogg, so I'm going to share some stories for the trip, particularily ghost stories. Now, to set the stage, Friday I was deeply regretting not going home for break. I wanted to see my high school friends and family, and I hated the fact that I was all alone Friday night. I didn't know anyone on my trip, and was apprehensive about that. Well, we hadn't even pulled out of the driveway and I new this was going to be a fantastic experience with a bunch of funny and amazing people. My group was the epitome of the perfect team. Everyone got along and was friends with one another, there was no clicks only massive amounts of fun.
It was when we were having an episode of fun that my ghost story arises. Me and 4 other people decided it would be a good idea to sit in the church pews (of where we were staying for the week) in the dark. An even better idea was that my friends wanted me to tell my own personal ghost experience story. Once the story ended things got creepy in the dark as we started talking about demons and exocersims, and personal experiences we've each had with things from "beyond". Well, it didnt take long before we freaked ourselves out and ran back into the light. Once we were in the light though one of my friends Christian, realized his rosary bead bracelet was gone! (for those of you who might not know a rosary is special for prayer and his bracelet was a miniature version, with religous sentimental value) This was the definition of freaky. His bracelet was a clasp that fit tightly around his hand and wouldn't just fall off. No one was playing a joke, everyone one was completely shocked this had happened, especially in light of the fact that we had been talking about demons and this was a religious bracelet, an also a bracelet of great sentiment to Christian that he would never use in a joke. Luckily, we found the bracelet in a pew but the fact it had been off at all was incredibly weird.
Since this is the first blogg since spring break then (or at least I hope it is) then I will share a little about what I did for break. While the campus because a ghost town Friday night, I was one of the very few people who stayed until Saturday morning, where I left for Mound Bayou, Mississippi at 6am. Why Mound Bayou or all places? I was going there on a service project with the Newman Community Catholic Campus Ministries, and in two 12 passenger vans 14 other Hokies and myself traveled for 14 hours to Mississippi.
Now to tell you everything that happened on this trip would be quite a lot for one blogg, so I'm going to share some stories for the trip, particularily ghost stories. Now, to set the stage, Friday I was deeply regretting not going home for break. I wanted to see my high school friends and family, and I hated the fact that I was all alone Friday night. I didn't know anyone on my trip, and was apprehensive about that. Well, we hadn't even pulled out of the driveway and I new this was going to be a fantastic experience with a bunch of funny and amazing people. My group was the epitome of the perfect team. Everyone got along and was friends with one another, there was no clicks only massive amounts of fun.
It was when we were having an episode of fun that my ghost story arises. Me and 4 other people decided it would be a good idea to sit in the church pews (of where we were staying for the week) in the dark. An even better idea was that my friends wanted me to tell my own personal ghost experience story. Once the story ended things got creepy in the dark as we started talking about demons and exocersims, and personal experiences we've each had with things from "beyond". Well, it didnt take long before we freaked ourselves out and ran back into the light. Once we were in the light though one of my friends Christian, realized his rosary bead bracelet was gone! (for those of you who might not know a rosary is special for prayer and his bracelet was a miniature version, with religous sentimental value) This was the definition of freaky. His bracelet was a clasp that fit tightly around his hand and wouldn't just fall off. No one was playing a joke, everyone one was completely shocked this had happened, especially in light of the fact that we had been talking about demons and this was a religious bracelet, an also a bracelet of great sentiment to Christian that he would never use in a joke. Luckily, we found the bracelet in a pew but the fact it had been off at all was incredibly weird.
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