phantom works
As the semester has begun, I’ve had less opportunity to think than usual. The past 10 days have required much rescheduling, leaving my typically-thoughtful self in a state of rush-hour focus. Most of my moments of daily zen now seem to take place with dinner when I watch one or two TED Talks. Even my cycling has been on the decline; although, the sub-freezing weather hasn’t helped my initiative. A break in the cold today was what I needed to warm up both my body and brain.
What was initially a chance to be a grader again for an engineering course has now become an opportunity to lead help sessions. Given that it’s the second week of school and the difficulty of material hasn’t yet begun its massive acceleration, the help sessions are probably going to be fairly slow. Like right now. No one’s here. But me. And that’s fine.
The course is System Dynamics, ME 3514 for those of us Virginia Tech people. I took the course several years ago and loved it; however, System Dynamics tends to be one of the most-complained-about courses in the entire Mechanical Engineering curricula. I can understand that, too - it’s the first, truly difficult course. Equations of motion in statics & dynamics are fairly straightforward, but for harmonic systems the solutions are much more painful (and therefore much more fulfilling for us serious geeks). Anyways, I look forward to fielding the whines and moans of sophomore and junior ME students.
Speaking of whines, I’d like for the bitter cold of Blacksburg to thaw just slightly - even 40 degF everyday would be alright - so that I can get some more road cycling in. If you do that for me, I’ll never touch a disposable battery again and will swap out a few of our neighbors’ ever-on lightbulbs with compact fluorescents. Ok, deal.