Well...I can officially scratch "Gutted and cleaned the inside screens of a wind tunnel" off my "Things to do before I die" list. x_x;

Well, the fifth week of research drew to a close today.

This week had mainly been loads and loads of manual labor. Drilling, cutting, grinding...all that jazz. But the good news is, most of the manual labor has been completed. I'll take some pictures of our completed test section when I get the chance.

To finish the day, we hooked everything up to the wind tunnel and the fan running up to 1000 RPM without any significant problems. We're shooting for around 2000 RPM, but want to make sure nothing collapses in our test section at those speeds!

Since some of you were interested in the types research I'm involved with this summer:

One project that I helped out a bit on involved designing a more aerodynamic wheelchair for our university's wheelchair racing team. Unfortunately, all the of the currently planned testing finished before I got this position for the summer, but we might do more testing in the future.

I got a crash course in some basic web design and updated our Racing Wheelchair Aerodynamics Design Team (RWADT) website.

Feel free to browse around if you're curious and/or bored. :D

What's more awesome than being in the path of potentially tornado-causing thunderstorms?

Working at the cafe as it happened! :D

So, my co-worker and I called the owner after the sirens went off for the second time. He told us to ask our customers to move into our basement area for safety reasons.

After herding everyone down there and locking the doors to the cafe, we all sat around and conversed for 15 minutes or so until we were fairly sure that everything was clear. One customer pulled out his guitar and began playing for us, which added to the experience.

Though a fair amount of these people were regulars, a lot of them I barely knew. But as goofy as it might sound, such random occurrences are good at bringing people together in one way or another.

It's times like these that I'm reminded of how much I'm going to miss this place when I graduate and leave. I owe so many friendships to downtown Champaign, Illinois.

Rue Royale is amazing.

Between research, working the cafe, weddings and other various social events, I've been fairly busy as of late. It feels good. :D

I'll elaborate on all of this later.

Bad News: I was hoping I'd be able to pick up more hours at the the cafe this summer. Unfortunately, this won't be possible...I'll be much too busy with other things. Still, I'm going to try to maintain working one or two shifts a week through the summer. I love the job too much to just stop doing it entirely.

Now...what is it I'll be so busy with exactly? I'll back up a bit...

Over a month ago, I ran into one of my professor's in the aerospace engineering office. He also oversees our undergraduate research program that's funded by NASA. He asked me if I had applied for any of the summer research positions. I told him that I didn't, as I didn't meet some of the minimum requirements to do so.

Well, a couple of weeks later I got an e-mail from this professor asking me to see him in his office regarding summer research...

So I hurried over to talk to him. He told me that they got a bit more funds from NASA this summer than originally anticipated, so they were able to take on a couple more students for undergraduate research. Since I had talked to him previously, he extended an offer to me and I took it without any hesitation! I talked with a couple of prospective people to work with and finally made the decision a couple of weeks ago.

So then...

Good News: I'll be helping out with investigating the effects of ice accretion on the performance of propeller blades on an aircraft. This includes helping to install models used for testing, building simulated ice shapes, running a huge wind tunnel (:D), and helping to analyze the data. I also might end up doing a bit of coding.

The entire program runs for about 10 weeks and I'll be working full-time for 10 bucks an hour. The job starts a week from Monday. I'm definitely looking forward to it. :)

Done...

Done...

...DONE!

My worst semester of undergrad is now behind me. With one more year left to go, classes from here on out get a bit harder, but a lot more interesting. I'm looking forward to it. :)

I'll make a post regarding my summer situation at some point when I'm not so intoxicated. :D

Finals start in a week.

...God help me.

I just got done watching a brief video of my rather drunken self at MFF last year... (thanks siiwolf and phoxtayl!) And my apologies to anyone who might have seen me stumbling about the lobby. :P

It's strange finally getting to piece together the voices and vague memories of people and certain things from that night. That Saturday night makes a lot more sense now. XD

I'm not drinking that much ever again (not that I intended to being with). Blacking out isn't very much fun. :P

Once...just once...

...I'd like to leave an exam feeling like I didn't let myself down in some way, shape or form.

- I'm tired of being the only slightly obsessive-compulsive person about cleaning amongst the 4 of us.

- I'm tired of dishes getting stacked in the sink when the dishwasher has plenty of room for dirty dishes.

- Furthermore, I'm tired of one roommate hoarding communal snacks in his room and leaving his dishes there for days on end.

- I'm tired of cooking big meals and not having any leftovers for the next day (not that this is really anyone's fault).

Thank God, I'm getting a single for the coming school year. After having roommates for the past two years, I miss having privacy and only having to clean up my own stuff.

Well, I've considered, rather reluctantly I might add, that I should apply to graduate schools in the fall in case I don't land a job somewhere. It's not so much that I'm doubting my ability to find a job in a year as much as I just want some form of back-up plan if things don't work out for one reason or another.

So, I guess the issue now is...where to apply...

Spring Break is far too short.

"I'd like to hear you talk about your favorite music ^_^"

Oooh, tough one. x.x

My musical tastes are ridiculously varied. It all depends on my mood. I guess I'll attempt to highlight a few of my favorites from the main genres I listen to.

Popular:
Coldplay is definitely my favorite when it comes to stuff you might hear on the radio. And they seem to have a lot of songs fitting to my various moods.

I'm still not quite sure what attracts me to Michelle Branch, but I've developed a thing for her over the past few years too. Same goes for Howie Day.

Metal:
Nightwish is definitely my top band when it comes to metal, probably mainly to do with how they incorporate classical elements into their more recent albums.

Sonata Arctica is another favorite. Many of their songs have (though sometimes disturbing) storylines to them that are interesting to listen to. And some of their songs are just plain catchy.

Folk:
Runrig is definitely my top for Folk. They aren't very well-known either, being from Scotland, which I find to be a bonus. :P Most of their songs are fairly light-hearted or inspirational.

Hem follows in second. I really like their instrumentation and the way they combine elements of bluegrass, country, folk and classical into their music.

Leahy's another favorite. They're one mean family of fiddlers. They give one hell of a live show too.

Indie:
Elsinore is a band local to the area that I'm pretty hooked on. Like a lot of Indie stuff though, they're kinda hard to describe. Trust me though, they're pretty unique.

New Age:
Loreena McKennitt is a definite first place. Her music style ranges from Celtic to Middle-Eastern, sometimes a mix of both. A fair amount of her lyrics come from old poems that she puts to music.

Adiemus is another favorite. I'd try to explain their style, but Wikipedia does it better: ..."Each Adiemus album is a collection of song-length pieces featuring harmonized vocal melody against an orchestral background. There are no lyrics as such: instead the vocalists sing syllables...the language of Adiemus is carefully stylized so as not to distract the listener's attention from the pitch and timbre of the voice—for example, as in African languages, syllables ending in consonants are rare."

Enya's also enjoyable at times, but I have to be in the mood for it. Though admittedly, a lot of her stuff starts to sound the same after a while.

Rock:
Porcupine Tree wins this category. I can't get enough of their sound, though some of their lyrics can get disturbing at times. They also occasionally make songs that address social issues in today's society, including the destruction of creativity and artistic quality in a lot of today's music and how so many parents out there treat their kids' problems with prescription drugs rather than dialog.

Matchbox Twenty is another favorite of mine.

Classical:
Good ol' Mozart never lets me down. Frédéric Chopin is another favorite if I'm in a contemplative mood or down about something.

Movie Scores:
Hans Zimmer is my favorite movie score composer ever. His works expand include Pirates of the Caribbean (the last two), The Last Samurai, The Lion King, Gladiator and The Da Vinci Code.

Howard Shore follows in a close second. I found his work with The Lord of the Rings trilogy to be simply awesome.

Modern Jazz:
You could say that jazz is my main genre of interest. That being said, I have a number favorites here, including Jesse Cook, Acoustic Alchemy, Spyro Gyra, Pat Metheny, and Dave Weckl.

Traditional Jazz:
Cannonball Adderley is pretty much my idol, considering he was a fellow alto saxophone player. Sadly, I only have one of his albums right now, but I hope to change that soon.

Misc.:
There are still a few groups left that I felt didn't really fit in one specific category very well...

Though I didn't used to care for Bob Marley so much, over the years, I've gotten to appreciate his stuff. I've found that I have a habit of listening to his music right when winter begins to subside.

I don't listen to them as much as I used to, but Sigur Rós still has my interest. There's just something addicting about their male singer's falsetto "lyrics" (none of their songs have actual words in them as far as I can tell) and their experimental instrumentation.

And damn, this took a while. It was fun to write though. :)

...I guess I'd have some time for this meme:

"Everyone has things they blog about. Everyone has things they don't blog about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by asking me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other." Repost if you want.

Kudos to my fluid mechanics professor.

He threw a homework problem at us this week that no one out of nearly a hundred students has yet to solve... It's due this afternoon.

I'm also running on zero hours of sleep.

It's gonna be an interesting Friday.

If you read or had any affiliation with my last post, I'd ask you to read my final thoughts regarding the situation.


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If you've never heard of or know very little about the existence of the furry community known as Furtopia, I'd urge you to ignore this post.

If you don't fall into the category above or if you're just really curious as to what I have to say...( read on... )

I was working at the cafe tonight...

A couple of hours into my shift, one of my aerospace professors walks in...with his date. O.o She also looked quite a bit younger than he did...she was also pretty drunk.

So...yeah. That was kind of weird. It's going to be hard to look at him in the same light ever again. XD

What a refreshing weekend this was. :)

I'll post details later.