Back to Work

Okay... So I just have to pull through three weeks of studying and taking final exams. Then it's home again for another three weeks.

I have to work hard now. I've got so much going on at once: Chemistry test; long, drawn out calculus homework; coming up with money to stay in school; very difficult FORTRAN program that does what RockSim does but not half as glamorously... you get the picture.

Concerning NaNoWriMo: I reached the 50,000 word mark the day before Thanksgiving, but my story is far from complete... Maybe I'll pick it up again over Christmas break.

My next USLI meeting will be this Thursday. Things are starting to pick up, so stay tuned for a post on our progress. We submitted our preliminary design review to NASA the day before break, so we should expect some feedback soon. ISU-USLI's website can be found at this address: http://www.isu-usli.com/

Very fun.

Q&A with Vance Coffman

I got to have a conversation with the former CEO of Lockheed Martin! It was cool. About eight of us freshmen in aerospace engineering were in attendance, and we asked him questions about his life, his career, his education (he started at Iowa State), and he gave us advice on doing well in the aerospace industry. Just another cool little thing I got to do.

Light at the End of the Tunnel! ...Or is That a Locomotive??

Okay, just kidding. But I can see the end. Only a couple days until Thanksgiving break, and then there are only about three more school weeks until the semester is all over. It's been a long semester, or a quick one, depending on how you look at it. Long, considering all the stuff I've learned and how much life has changed since August. But actually, strictly temporally, it felt faster than a typical high-school semester, probably because the classes go at a much faster pace.

But it's not over yet. Now we have to study for finals.

Due tomorrow is my learning team's technical report for the rocket design project we did in AerE160. We completed the report in about one week, it was a mad dash.

NaNoWriMo continues okay, I'm a little behind schedule though. To reach the 50,000 word mark by November 30th, I should be at 28339 words, and I'm currently at 23216. So it's not terrible. Considering I am capable of doing 10k a day (about average for Nanooks in Pajamas), 1914 a day is NOT an issue in the least.

Thanksgiving blessings:

• Thank you God for a wonderful family to come home to.
• Thank you for giving me a passion for aerospace and your Awesome Creation.
• Thank you  for giving me a great situation here at Iowa State.
• Thank you for saving me from destruction.
• Thank you for being my guidance system.
• Thank you for cereal.
• Thank you for helping me through difficult times as you always have in the past.
• Thank you for mechanical pencils.
• Thank you for wonderful fall colors... while they lasted.
• Thank you for bringing cold weather.
• Thank you for getting me through Multivariable Calculus.
• Thank you God for being my God and for being so awesome.

Discovery's Launch Postponed

The last flight of the Space Shuttle has been postponed until later this November. The reason is for a major hydrogen leak.

Oh well.

(I'm secretly glad, because I would have had to miss the launch on NASA TV, it would have been coincident with my calculus class).

NaNoWriMo

I'm actually writing a novel again this year. I skipped it last year because I was very busy, and even though I'm just as busy this year, I'm going for it.

This year it's science fiction again. In short, it is about some college students interning at the Dellanop Outpost, which is a space station on a planet ~150 billion light-years from Earth, clear across the Universe. Dellanop is linked to Earth by the AerEon, a mysterious portal that had its beginnings as a project at the end of World War V to develop the Ultimate Weapon. While it failed to produce any amount of kinetic energy usable for destruction, it opened up a window into this other star system.

The conflict comes into the story when these students discover the plans of a covert organization that aims to control the AerEon, thereby controlling passage to and from Earth. There are some more plot twists as the story goes on, but I would never reveal them here! (Especially when it is yet unwritten)

So far I'm up to 6883 words, and going strong!