So school has started up once again. I did go to classes in the Spring and Summer, but the Fall is always a lot different than spring/summer. I had 16 credits, but then realized it was too much, so I dropped a class and now I have 13 and my life is good. :) I must say that I am very happy to be starting the Junior core classes for Chemical Engineering. It finally feels like I'm going somewhere in my major. So that's always nice. Though it does mean that the classes are much harder, haha. But I chose this major knowing that it was brutal, so I guess I can't complain.
Research has been a big thing this spring/summer and it continues to be so in the Fall. I am currently working on 4 projects: one for a PhD candidate (which I am a coauthor on for a presentation at the national conference for Chemical Engineering), one for a private company we work with, and two that I am lead researcher on. So that's pretty exciting. It's nice to have my own projects. :) Publish or perish right? Actually, I'm really just banking on publications to get me into grad school b/c my grades won't be anything spectacular. And speaking of research, we did have some fun with some leftover dry ice the other day. By we I mean Michael and myself. Here's a fun video from that adventure.
And now on to the marvelous adventures!!!! Okay, well the only adventures I really have are to the football game and occasionally I fry me some homemade tortilla chips. So here are some pictures of those fun times. :)
This is a little guy I made out play dough. It was supposed to be a dinosaur, but it looks a lot more like some sorta pokemon. So that's what it is, I invented a new species of Pokemon. Haha.
Yummy delicious fried chips with a queso bean dip. I use muenster cheese in the dip. Not a traditional cheese for Mexican food, but it's what I had.
During the football game! We had great seats! We were in the 20th row from the field!!!! And of course BYU won this game and we are now in the top 25. :)
adf
Pregame marching band fun times!!! With the way the Senior courses are scheduled for ChemE I think I may try out for the marching band next year! :)
So that is all the fun and super marvelous things that are going on in my life right now. Life IS good.
So I think summer has finally decided to come (and stay) here in Utah. It's about time!!! I'm not a fan of the apartment being hot all the time, but it is really nice to be able to play outside whenever I want. :) There is however TONS of construction going on around campus right now. I guess that's what happens when you stay year round; they have to fix it all some time, so why not when most people are gone? Oh well, I'm hoping that they'll be finished soon with the areas I use....then I don't care what they do. Haha, I can be selfish. :) I went to a test review today...please note that it is a Saturday!!!! I am way impressed with myself. Then again, I skip class most days, so I don't think I can really pat myself on the back for it. But I'm going to anyways. :)
In other fun news, I lost my wallet for a while earlier this week. Wallets are great b/c they have everything you need in one handy place...but it's awful when you lose them for that same reason. But at least I got it back and nothing was missing! Then again, I put it in the pocket of a seat in the car, so it makes sense to have everything. I got a book today. David bought it the other day and told the parents about it and he got them to give him money to get copies for Michael and I. It's a book about the LDS perspective on mental illness...but not the preachy have faith kind of things. So it should be a good read...I hope. Well, that's it. My life isn't that exciting, haha. Peace out.
Thermodynamics of Relationships
Δ G = 0 : Single Equilibrium Condition
Δ G = Δ H - TΔ S
Δ H : Happiness in a relationship
T : Things single guys enjoy doing (i.e. playing video games)
-Δ S: Probability your wife will let you do these things
Δ G : + then get married/marital bless
-requires work or energy
- spontaneous
-no work or energy required
-go back to being single spontaneously
Once married, TΔ S is a function of your spouse, with Δ S as a function of her current mood.
-Δ S = q.rev/T, where q.rev is nice things you do for your wife.
Δ H = Δ U + Δ (PV)
Δ U = Internal personal happiness
V = volume (size of family)
Δ (PV) = family size (V) and amount of responsibility (p)
Therefore, the more work you put in a relationship, your responsibility increaseas along with the
size of your family.
Created by: Bored members of the BYU Catalysis lab (mostly Brad). Inspired by Dr. P’s lecture.
So I just realized I haven't written on here FOREVER. So it's about time for another update. :) Only big difference in my life now is that I'm in school again! Hooray!!!! I am taking two classes in the spring term, a math one and a EE one. My math class isn't too bad b/c I've done a lot of this work before. EE however does not like me at all. But I'm trying to figure it out. This class has a pre requisite that I don't take....so they just assume you know it all...great. Oh well, I think I'm beginning to understand it a little better now. So that's always nice. But we'll see how that goes. I think I'm going to have to get ahead on my homework instead of just doing it on the day that it is due.
I'm also working again, roughly 15 hours a week or so. That's going pretty well. I have plenty to do and we're getting a new TGA!!! WooHoo!!!! I'm really excited about that one. That'll make life MUCH easier on everyone in the lab...but especially me since the TGA is really my thing, haha. Cobalt prep at least is going very well. Although, I was opening up the desiccator and the handle broke off and the lid broke and cut my hands. That was a bloody mess. But now my fingers are feeling better. I've been able to take of band-aids on one of the cuts. The other two are still too big to take off a band-aid. So that wasn't good, but other than that, Cobalt prep is going well!
School and work keep me pretty busy, so I don't have much else interesting to say. I did however go golfing today. Well, I just went to a driving range, but it's the most golf I've ever done. I was awful, haha, but it was my first time ever, so who cares. Although I hear we are going to play 9 holes next Saturday....that'll be interesting. We'll see how that goes. It'll be fun if nothing else. Ooooooh! There's a Thai restaurant right by my apartment now! I didn't even know it was there, but I walked past it when I was walking back to mi casa one day. I am VERY excited to try that out. I Love me some Thai food! :) That's about it, peace out.
So I've had the same pair of running shoes since my Freshmen year in High School. But they've seen a lot of miles and as such they've really warn down. And now, I gots me some new shoes!!!! It's good stuff. And here's a song about new shoes to Celebrate. I hope this link thingy works....I haven't tried using links like this before in this bloggy stuff. So we shall see. Oh, and there's a link to the awesome pictures of my shoes on my Facebook. .....I've now figured out how this works. Double click the title of my post and it will take you to the song. It's good stuff! :)
I wrote this on November 8, 2009, a few days after I got out of UNI (the psych ward). I showed it to a small number of people back then, but I've decided to publish it for all to see now. Granted, I am holding on to a more recent one, but it will come out in it's own due time...
Nights are always the worst. This is nothing new. Though the constant trend seems to be the need for some sort of release before I can go to bed. If I’m lucky, I’ll be super tired and I’ll fall asleep regardless of what I may be thinking. But that is hardly, if ever the case. The real problem though, comes in finding a release that is healthy. There are many unhealthy releases I have used in the past; cutting, throwing up, punching hard things, hitting my head on hard things, etc. Though none of these are healthy, they all seem to get the job done quite effectively. But that is usually only temporary. I find that things with more lasting consequences, are a much better form of release, or at least self degradation. For example, instead of doing any of those releases, I just stay up all night because I know I shouldn’t and that I will regret it in the morning. The pain from those other things will be gone in the morning, but the fact I’m running on no sleep will be with me the rest of the day and quite possibly the rest of the week. But even better perhaps, is the feeling of guilt, usually caused by Not doing something. Most things you feel guilty about doing are these unhealthy releases, but they don’t seem to last very long. However, missed opportunities have a way of sticking with for a very long time. Sleep deprivation however, is just a minor example. Sleeping pills do a good job of making me drowsy, but they aren’t going to make me fall asleep. They just help. I can force myself to stay awake after I have taken them, though counter intuitive to even taking them, it is still a viable choice. Mostly, this is because when I take my sleeping pills I am busy and don’t have time to think about much. But when I actually try to fall asleep, I have plenty of time alone with my brain; and that doesn’t usually end well. Or at least not in any productive way anyhow. Curiously enough though, a lot of these aforementioned “missed opportunities” seem to come back in my dreams. Most of them aren’t current, they are things I didn’t do a while ago, as far back as a few years. There are only so many that I can remember, but this does appear to be a running theme. So while I’m not only thinking about them before falling asleep, my brain is getting no reprieve once I am actually asleep. And that pretty much sucks, because my brain needs that time to be sleeping and resting, not worrying about past events. But I think they still stick around because they are things the I purposely did. It’s not like I wasn’t aware of the situation. I simply chose not to do something because I knew I would regret it at a later time. And that later time seems to come and go as it pleases. It usually just depends on how busy I am though. So while it seems to come and go as it pleases, I’m sure there is some underlying pattern to it. And I suspect that pattern has a lot to do with how busy I am at the time. Which brings me back to nights and trying to fall asleep. It is impossible, so far as I know, to be busy and still fall asleep. The only exception that I can think of, being the point of total exhaustion. But that is neither healthy, nor very useful because odds are, whatever I am doing to stay busy I am doing a terrible job at because I’m so tired. But again, perhaps that would be the goal of such an endeavor to try to fall asleep. I know I would feel bad about doing bad work, thus prolonging the regret. I was once told “Live your life with no regrets.” This is a great piece of advice, though I find it an easy way to be miserable as well. It basically tells us that if we live our life without regrets, that we will be happy and content with our lives. The converse however, is also true. If we live our life with many regrets, we will be depressed and wholly unsatisfied with the direction of our lives. Which I guess goes to one of those glass half empty, glass half full kind of arguments. But I think that would be grossly over-simplifying the matter. I don’t think it’s a mere question of optimism or pessimism, it goes to the root of who we are and what we want out of our life. Throughout the last few years, that goal simply seems to be unhappy, to put myself down, and to have many regrets. I guess the real question, and perhaps the point to all of this rambling, is why I want this? Why do I not want to be happy? I should want to be happy, right? Isn’t life so much better when you’re happy? I like to think so. But I think I am so out of practice from being truly happy, that I really can’t even comprehend what that would even be like. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I don’t know what it is, or maybe I don’t think that it is even possible? Perhaps I have resigned myself to believing that life as it currently is, and has been, is really the best that it is going to get, and that there’s not much I can do about it. That’s rather short sighted, because of course, there is plenty that I can do about it. But I just keep asking myself, why put forth the effort? Why even try? I’m getting through things alright, perhaps even good. Which reminds me of another quote, “Good is the enemy of Great.” Further, I may have become complacent thinking that good is enough, and great really isn’t worth it. Who am I to complain about “good”? Who can really define “good” anyhow? It’s all relative and subjective. It’s not like there’s some special equation to quantify all of this. I really wish there was though, because that kind of stuff makes a lot more sense to me. Then I could just run some numbers through a program and figure out what variable to change to optimize the results. That would be the nicest thing in my opinion, but alas, that is not really realistic at all. But such is life, right?
So we went to Wal Mart and I got my super amazing toothpaste back! And I got the whitening kind. Never tried this variety, but it seems to be cleaning just as well. So I'll take it! And I'm sure you all have noticed the marvelous change to the look of my blog. I think it's way super amazing and AWESOME (as is everything I do, haha). But now, I'm looking for input. Does anyone think there's anything, font/color or otherwise, that should be changed to make it more......reader friendly?
So the subject doesn't have much to do about anything really. Though I do miss MY toothpaste. Haha. I am now using some Colgate Total plus Whitening. It's pretty good stuff, but it's not my Crest Pro Health. Haha. I am definitely a Crest fan and not a Colgate person. And that is that. So I've been a very good boy about going to the gym! I'm supposed to go to the gym to help gain weight and be healthy and such. I know, being healthy. It's an evil plan that my doctors have for me. Though as I've said before and I'll say again, I'm ready to do everything to make myself healthy for once. Both Heather and Holly said the 30's are easier than the 20's, but I'd like to see if I can make my 20's decent. :) In other health news, my surgery is not giving me any problems any more. At least in the last 3 weeks. So that's really good! I still have the awesome scar, which is totally cool. I'm even gonna try to work out my abs today! That's how good it feels! :) Oh, and I finished all the paperwork and it all got approved and such for my triumphant return to BYU. I'm gonna go back at the end of April for Spring term. It'll be super good fun and amazingness. It'll be nice to be back at school and Healthy for once. Hoorays! And I'm wearing a cool shirt today, if you were wondering. :) Peace out for now.
As some of you may know, the first three words of the title are a song by Matt Nathanson. I'd suggest listening to it as it is really good. But to continue to what I really want to write, it does have a good message. All we are is exactly who we are. And this sounds simple and perhaps even stupid, but that doesn't matter. The true beauty in this is knowing who we really are and enjoying every second of it. For too many years, I've tried to lie to myself, convince myself, or otherwise change my perspective of who I was; that I didn't need to be happy and abandonment is no big deal. Now that's just two, but they're probably the biggest. Sometimes, if not always, it takes a life changing even for one to make such changes and realize they've been lying to themselves all along. For me, that would be cops storming into my bedroom. Scary as all get out, but necessary. And after all of this, and the help I am currently receiving I've been able to realize that one simple truth: All we are, we are. So enjoy it and make the very best of the person that you are! Or at least work towards it, that's my goal anyhow. It will take a while, but it is a goal I foresee myself accomplishing. :) Peace out for now.
So as all of you know already, or I assume you do, I was in the psych ward from Thursday night till Monday afternoon. This time I was in the one down in Provo and not in Salt Lake. This one is a lot more prison feeling and the food wasn't as good. Oh, and I couldn't get all the Dr. Pepper I wanted. But other than that, it was good. And actually, there was one great thing about this place. They follow this "lifetrap" philosophy thing. It's all out of this book called "Reinventing Your Life." This book was basically life changing for me.
I went to UNI after an anxiety attack so that I couldn't even try to attempt suicide. But this time, I had actually tried to commit suicide. Two cop cars, an ambulance, AND a fire truck came. That pretty much scared the crap out of me. Especially since I am really afraid of cops and he was the first one to arrive. And of course a lot of people were standing around looking to see what happened. So then I walked myself into the ambulance, crowd watching, and went to the hospital. They put me in the pediatric room. That was awesome. It was all decorated with Finding Nemo stuff. SOOOOO COOL. And Happy. So the social worker finally came in, and it wasn't Randy this time. Whew. He's the idiot who kicked me out of the ER in October. Anyhow, this nice new social worker came in and told me basically that I was gonna be staying there. So I did. And then I got all my nice reading and thinking and praying in. And there were a lot of group therapy things that I went to as well. And in the end, I've decided to make some much needed changes in my life that will help me to be MUCH happier and hopefully keep me out of the psych ward in the future. Oh, and they added Wellbutrin with my Prozac. That's the other change. Guess we'll see how that works. Anyhow, that's once again my life as it stands right now.
So I think that anytime you plan on waking up early and have lots of stuff planned to do during your day, you may as well just sleep in because your plans will get screwed up anyhow. Case in point, the Clyde building (engineering building) is closed all day today. Apparently a contractor blew up a transformer and caused a gas leak inside the building. So it was all evacuated and nobody is allowed back in until they get it all fixed. Usually, not that bad, but I had like 3 things planned to do at work today. There were two catalysts that needed final impregnations and TPO to analyze and a TPR to run. But NO! I can't do any of those. Usually I wouldn't really care, but I want hours at work! Haha, me need moneys! Secondly, I need to get this data done as I have to present it all in less than a month. At least I get to do that. The ORCA grant stuff didn't work out so well. Our group went 0/3 in ORCA grants this year. Lame. Oh wells. In other news, I did get a pay raise at work, always appreciated. And i get to work more hours as well. Another bonus. So in the meantime I guess I just try to catch up w/ the work I missed being in the hospital. It shouldn't be too bad now that I only have 8 credits. (LAME, I would like a healthy semester for once!!!!) Anyhow, that's me in a nutshell at this moment.
Okey doke. So in lieu of telling the story multiple times, I find easiest to just blog about it! Woohoo! Plus I haven't blogged in quite some time, so those of you who have been waiting (I write as if anybody cares) here a new one is. So almost two weeks ago by now (wow, it's been a long time) I got this incredibly bad pain in my stomach. Actually below my stomach, in the intestinal area. And to top that off, I couldn't eat anything without throwing it all back up again! Pretty good stuff, I know. So I tried to tough it out and just wait for it to fix itself. But after like 16 hours and a night with literally no sleep b/c of the pain, I decided to go to the ER. Always good times there.
So I get in the ER and they do their spiel and take forever and a day to do anything about the pain. But thankfully they gave me something for pain and something for nausea. Then they took some x-rays. I didn't know that you could find intestinal problems on an x-ray. Anyhow, I sit in the ER, they run my blood tests and urine tests and give me a whole bunch of fluids b/c the throwing up all night has made me quite dehydrated. So after many hours, like 7 or 8, probably average for an ER, the doctor comes in and tells me it's just a bowel obstruction that will go away on it's own and he prescribes me some percoset for the pain and some zofran for nausea and was about to send me on my way. Then he asks me if they did any x-rays and such. First, how does he almost discharge me without looking? Anyhow, I tell him they took three. So he goes and looks at them and the radiologist suggested I get a CT scan of my intestines b/c the x-ray showed some abnormal stuff. Ironically, when you can't keep any food down and your intestines are blocked, they make you drink 6 cups of apple juice mixed with contrast. Crank up the nausea meds....that's about all that can really be said at that point. So I dutifully drink it all down and then they take me to get the CT scan. Pretty fun stuff. Actually, they're really boring. So they finish and bring me back to my lovely ER room. Guess what happens next?
Yup, you guessed it. I wait some more! Eventually my nurse asks if they have received the results of my CT scan, and they had....a while ago. Go figure. But this time instead of just the ER doctor, they also bring in the trauma guy working at that time. You know you're in for some fun when they call in the trauma guy. So he comes in to deliver the diagnosis. Apparently, I had a volvulus. It's kind of a cool word I guess. Basically it means that my intestines got all twisted up around themselves, wikipedia it if you really want to see. He explains this to me, and then tells me the good part! A volvulus can kill your small intestines pretty quickly and I may already have some dead tissue. GREAT. And the cherry on top? This was all caused by some scar tissue from the surgery WHEN I WAS BORN! A 21 year time bomb. Awesome stuffs. So then they wheel me into the ER. Naturally, I want to know what they're gonna use. And they be using Propofol, that stuff that killed Michael Jackson. Sign me up. And then they put me under and I don't remember a thing.
Then I came out (please hold all gay jokes, I didn't say the closet), and they gave me a nice SMALL room on the surgical floor. Then I got to chill there with some morphine and nurses and patient care techs and all that good stuff till Saturday (surgery was on Sunday). Then I got home and did nothing, except take a lot of percoset. Now, almost another week after that, I'm still taking my percoset! But at least I made it to class and such. Well, today. I'm gonna try to make it to all of my classes tomorrow! Wish me luck! So all in all, I almost lost my small intestines last week. And now I have them. Hooray!
