Meaning of Life, the Universe, and sleep deprived test taking.

This past week was the week that most people at school have been taking finals, or studying for them.  I on the other hand have been doing essentially neither.  I wrapped up a few presentations early in the week, took a low stress oral exam, and oh yeah, I almost forgot again, an easy final for my class (I almost forgot the day of... oops).  This has contributed much to catching up on other neglected tasks in life.  Ironically, all the freedom has had me so excited that I've had a hard time sleeping a few days.  One day, I even just wandered outside at 2 am to look at the stars.  The stars and universe are pretty dang amazing when you look at it.  It made me happy inside.  A good feeling

Continuing on with the big thing for the week though, I took the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, or FE.  So, in effect, I paid $150 to go take a test at 7 am on a saturday for 8 hours!  EWWWW.  This test isn't particularly hard and is one of the first steps in becoming a licensed professional engineer (my brother took the PE exam this week).  Oddly enough, Chemical engineers don't tend to need this license, but it'll be good to have should I ever need it.  Remember how I said this test isn't that hard, well it's true... as long as you've studied every type of engineering... civil, electrical, mechanical, and actually, the chemical engineering components are pretty easy (or too irrelevant for general engineers to need to know).  So in the middle of this test I found myself trying to understand, moments of inertia of beams, maximum stresses, and other things.  The wonderful part... I'd only slept about 3 hours the night before, just because I was nervous I suppose.  A lot of other guys must have been feeling the stress too, because by the end of 8 hours... that room STANK.  HORRIBLY.

In contrast to that stinkiness though, I feel the test went rather well. We'll see in a few months how I did.
Now though, I'm on my way to being done with my undergraduate career forever. Summer, you are mine! WAHOO!

The Art of MacGyverness

All of you should want to at least in some way, be more like this man:

That's right, MacGvyer, the guy that can build whatever you need from whatever happens to be lying around.
I may not yet be Batman, but I'm sure dang close to already being MacGyver.  In fact, watching MacGyver as a child may have been a motivating factor in becoming who I am (a geek that builds stuff).

The reason I bring this up, is today, I employed my MacGyver skills to repair my punctured car tire.  Fortunately I have on hand several quarts of rubber cement (don't ask why) which has proved useful on many occasion.  So I was able to saturate a small bit of paper with the glue and shove it down the hole.  Unfortunately, or maybe cause I'm lazy in a dumb way, I had to pump it up with a bike pump.  Which is as you can imagine, a lot of work.  Either way, my tire works, and saved me having to go buy (for now) an actual tire repair kit ($8).  But what if the situation had happened somewhere else... well, I'm glad to know I've got the MacGyver I need in me.

If you prep your inner MacGyver you can do some of the following too:

wire a DVD player to a TV with baling wire
fix a dryer motor with bacon grease
use a paper clip to create a weapon of mass desctruction
build a swamp cooler out of a trash can and a fan
work the most awesome mullet of the 80's, but then again... that should probably stay in the 80's

if by chance you need MacGyver's 6 seasons of instructional videoes, feel free to ask me to borrow some, cause I love spreading the power of MacGyver

Menace to Society

It's now been a few months since I'm become what in Mormon culture is jokingly known as a "menace to society." Meaning, I'm 25 and not married.  Now, until recently I haven't particularly felt any different.  I'm still looking to date and hopefully get married eventually, and spending most and/or way to much of my time in school.  Nothing particularly changed at 25

But, looking ahead, I can see it will be short order before I may become a legitimate bonifide menace to society.

What's the difference?  A job... with a salary... and free time.

What to do with those...?

I know, how about this:

http://www.tanksforsale.co.uk/T72_tanks_for_sale_page.htm

It seems too good to pass up, I mean, my OWN TANK.  While I'm at it, I'll probably start buying parts for my own machine shop, and working on secret projects.  Building armor, debilitating weapons, awesome spy gear and devote myself to a life of fighting crime and terrorists.

So, in a relatively short time, I'll go from mild mannered Jeremy, to yeah, Batman. 

I know on some levels, most of me thinks "awesome".  Indeed, it probably is awesome as a second choice, but the first choice of having a wife and kids = much more awesome.  Which is why I probably will somehow restrain my desire for a tank and toys, because, let's face it, Bruce Wayne doesn't have the best luck with women, and that's why I'd be in that situation in the first place.

But what a fun dream...

Life is good

After having spent the weekend with the simultaneous joys of conference, and pains of probable food poisoning.  I came to a more clear and firm decision.  Life is good.  In spite of hardships, the joys of life are incomparable.  The contrast and coexistence of the two states helped made that very clear.

The fun result, is I now feel fully justified and saying life is good regardless of what trials are going on in life.  I have always been generally what I feel is an optimistic person.  Even during bad days, life is good, nothing has ever been so bad that my outlook could really be negative.  Although stressful, I've always had faith that if I do my best, things will work out, and if they don't work out like I'd like, then it wasn't meant to be, so why worry.  So responding life is good in such times, always felt like I was hiding something, even though that's how I felt.  It's like acknowledging the difference between understanding a test IS hard, and that a test was easy for ME.  Life may be hard, but I feel up for it, so it's good.

So how's life for you?

Mission Reunion

It's that time of year, right before conference, when mission reunions are held.  I have the fortunate pleasure of having my mission president live in Orem.  In fact he teaches at BYU.  So along with the others from my mission, I can see him fairly often.  That being said, I usually don't see them much, so it's  always good to see those men that I had the privilege of serving with and be able to catch up on how they're doing in life.

However, better than be able to catch up with them though, was the spiritual rejuvenation, and reminders of my purpose and mission in life.  I'd noticed recently that I haven't been progressing spiritually like I'd like to be.  So it was really good to sit with my fellow Brethren (and their wives, there were sisters in my mission, but they almost all were from the Polynesian islands) and feel the spirit, and share and rejoice in the gospel together just like zone conferences in the mission.

More interestingly and something that happened during the mission as well.  Prior to zone conference the spirit would whisper to me what I should study to be prepared.  I was grateful to have those promptings to once again prepare me to hear the things I needed to hear.

Ultimately, I'm grateful for the strength Gospel of Jesus Christ gives, and brings into my life, and the knowledge that he did not send us here to fail, rather he prepared us from the foundation of the world and we are ready for what is required of us in life.