Something old, something new?

Hey look kids! An update!

Well, a lot of interesting things have happened this past week but it seems I've had no time to write about them. I probably don't have time right now either but I'm going to take advantage of the lull in bewteen classes ;)

I spent some time on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday trying to figure out how to do double integrals. The book said don't do double integrals, you'll mess up. The instructor said that the author didn't know what he was talking about, doing it by double integral is the only way, you won't mess up if you do it like that! I went to the TAs and the first one told me "never try a double integral, they're too hard." I tried figuring out what the book said but it seemed to complicated, so I went back to the TAs. The second girl told me she could show me if I really wanted to do it that way. So she spent about twenty minutes trying to figure out how to set it up, then gave up and said "just use the tables in the back of the book." I did that but I still wanted to do the double integral! It was a matter of principle!

I finally just decided to have a go at it myself and using a website I found, was able to figure out how to set up and solve a double integral (yay) and then another guy came in to the TA section and affirmed that I had done it correctly. It was such a relief to finally be able to get that done!

Thursday I was studying for a couple of exams on Friday, on in Circuits and one in Calculus. Down in the deep, dark basement of Physical Science, a couple of other students (that were in my Physics class) were trying to figure out the homework for Physics that week. I helped them out on a couple of problems since I had completed the assignment earlier in the week. One of the guys asked if anyone would fill in for him at the CEAT Student Council meeting. Apparently you can only miss two meetings or you're off the board and yet you could have someone fill in for you and just say "by proxy." Bad Brad's was catering so I volunteered to go (sit through a meeting with a book or something and get free food? Why not?!). I ended up taking notes during the meeting but I don't think it was necessary. The whole thing seemed a waste of time to me, but the food was great! Baked beans, potato salad, ham and brisket. I had seconds after the meeting and then a guy came and just gathered it all up to throw away. I could have cried. I wanted to take a bag home or something, all that great brisket going to waste!

Friday morning, bright and early we had our Calculus exam, which was very easy. I just got the results back today and while it was an A, I still made a few dumb mistakes that I shouldn't have. Like when taking the cross product, the magnitude is the square root of the sum of the squares, not just added together like the dot product! Sheesh! I knew that, but made this mistake :(

The circuits exam seemed a bit harder but still was all right. I'll get the results to that in an hour and a half. I worked on homework that afternoon, trying to keep ahead so I could volunteer for the Celebration Stillwater the next day.

Saturday morning, Team Zulu went around looking for people we could help with yardwork, or anything. Jonathan and myself were drivers but we got separated when he stopped to ask someone at a church if they wanted help, which worked out since most people don't need a huge crowd anyway. I was surprised at how few people there were out at 10:30 on Saturday morning! I guess they were all still in bed!

We ended up seeing a guy cutting a tree branch so I pulled up and got out and asked if he wanted any help hauling limbs off or doing anything. He said no but his wife told us that there was an elderly person across the street who had a branch that they had offered to cut for her, so if I wanted to bring that over I could. It wasn't a huge limb so I was able to pick it up and carry it over while Stephen, Betty, and Jesse went next door to help another elderly couple. The lady told me that there was another older person in a yellow house down the street who might need some help. So I walked on over there. She did in fact have something she wanted done and she was wanting my estimate on how much it would cost to fix it! I assured her that I didn't want any money, we were serving the community but it made me concerned that this might be a bigger project than we could handle!

She had a small gate that had a gap between it and the latch. Because of erosion, the gate had slid down a little and was cock-eyed at an angle. She wondered if I could put a bar or post there so that there wouldn't be such a large gap because her dog would escape through it. I said I thought I could fix it and asked for a shovel.
Basically, I just dug up the post that the gate was hung on and around it, moved the gate closer to the wall a couple of inches, and sank it down deeper (it was in a concrete column) and then packed dirt around it again. She had some bricks on the bottom to keep the dog from getting out there, but I lowered it so she wouldn't have to do that. Then I used some lumber she had in the back yard as well as my cordless Dewalt Skill Saw to cut a 2x8 and make a little retaining wall by the fence so it wouldn't erode any more. Then used the rest of the 2x8 to close up a small gap (with nails and wire) by the gate and fence. There was no way that little dog would get out! All in all, it was a fairly simple job but she was extremely pleased with it and very thankful, she just couldn't believe it.

On Sunday I walked up to the table where the men were at and I think it was Dave who said "I heard you picked up a gate and moved it with just one hand!" and Dan said "I heard it was just your pinky." Really, it wasn't a very big gate at all and the entire thing (concrete column and all) probably weighed less than 100 pounds! It was a one man job but for half the time, Betty, Stephen, and Jesse were over helping a lady plant a bush or tree or something. We then found another old lady walking out on her front lawn (in curlers) and asked if we could help, she was shocked that anyone would be out helping for free. We raked her back yard and swept the back porch for her and then it was time for us to go to the main even of the day (at the park). I think our team was able to help out quite a few people, considering. We drove around for probably 20 minutes trying to find someone but the other teams had harder times than we did finding people, so we were blessed in that. It was funny to be driving around with a haw-eye on the lookout trying to spot somebody in need of our assistance :)

I went home for the afternoon and worked out a bunch of Physics problems in preparation for my exam this next week (I have three this week). Then I went back over at about 5:00 to see what was up and to help clean everything up. We got the tents put away rather quickly, our team from the church did a great job, picking up trash, moving chairs, taking down tents, etc. We had enough help for all that I think!

I dropped by Jonathan's apartment that night and there was no light on so I tried the door, it opened and I poked my head inside. Yup, dark in there. I saw a couple of feet sticking out on the bed in the living room and figured he was asleep there and started grinning. He popped up and looked blearily at me, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. The light was shining behind me so he couldn't tell who it was an he thought it was 3:00 in the morning or something. "What do you want?" He asked. I didn't say anything for a few seconds, just kept grinning. Then I told him I was just dropping by to see what he was up to and he said I really creeped him out. He couldn't tell who it was in the doorway but he could see this weird smile and to have someone to be doing that at what he thought was 3:00 in the morning, well, yes, I can guess that would be weird. I didn't mean it that way, I was just chuckling inside because he was sleeping at that time (he stayed up too late the previous night).

I'm reading Josh McDowell's More Evidence that Demands a verdict, Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, The Christian Life, and Let's Study Galatians. I also bought some more books at the booksale this past Thursday.....

Okay, so that pretty much brings me up to date for now. I've got a class in a few minutes so I'm going to try to get moving. Laters!