Rerynold's Numbers

. Did you know that the behavior of a tiny particle of sediment in water can be modeled by a marble in glycerin? (Glycerin is very sticky stuff. It's like syrup.) The marble falls pretty slowly. The way we can decide if totally different systems will behave similarly is this concept called the Reynold's Number. Some guy named Reynold is credited with figuring it out. You can calculate the Reynold's Number like this:

Reynold's Number= (fluid density)*(fluid velocity)*(characteristic length)/(viscosity)

The fluid velocity might actually be the velocity of the fluid say going through a pipe. However, it could also be the velocity of the marble that you just dropped in the cylinder full of glycerin. Whether it's the fluid moves of the thing in the fluid doesn't really matter. You're just interested in how they move relative to each other. The characteristic length is basiclly the length along which the two things are touching. So it's the diameter of the marble of the diameter of the pipe...
 What if the pipe was square? How would you deal with that? I have no idea. I'll have to ask the professor. What about a river bed? hmm.... I don't know there either.

The last term is the viscosity of the liquid. That you can get out of a book or the internet. People have figure them out and put them in text books and references and written papers and blah blah...
But how did they figure that out?
I don't know. Good question. Maybe I will learn that soon. Maybe I already learned it and forgot.

Dreaming Awake

I have this feeling like I'm dreaming all the time. I can't remember what I've been doing or learning. I looked at a lab report last night and it took me a minute to figure out that it was one that I'd already completed and submitted. I withdrew from one of my classes. It was a ridiculous amount of work for a 3 credit course. Sigh. Maybe now some of what I am learning will stick.
 I want to say something interesting now. I want to tell you a story, but the inside of my head is a big fuzzy cloud filled with chemistry and physics and differential equations. Oh well maybe I will tell you about some of that.

'Just do it' worked well enough today. I dragged myself out and went to class where I understood nothing for about a half hour. Then we stopped talking about flux and did some derivations. That interested me...
It was a really beautiful day. Fall can be so perfect. 

It's been a really hard week for me. Today, I didn't go to class. I got in bed and went to sleep. Sleep helps, but missing class is bad. I've been lonely a lot. Carla died this time last year. I think that's a big part of the ache in my chest, but not all of it. Some of it is anxiety about school. Busy work and due dates. I think I constantly battle fear. "What if this lab report is really hard? What if I get stuck and don't know what to do?" The answers to these question are obvious of course. If I get stuck, I go to office hours and ask questions or ask a classmate, but the questions remain... nagging at me. They are my little demon friends. They get stronger and louder as I get tired or sad. Today, they were deafening. I kept running into pockets of sorrow like pockets of fog on an early fall evening. They are surprising, mesmorizing and cold. Like for they transform the familiar into the unknown. But I like fog. It's beautiful. This feeling is to big for me to see beauty in it, and it's too blinding for me to see.
Clearing the cobwebs out of my head is a MUST DO. I have a few ideas.
I've been alone a lot. Even when Andrew is here, we work in separate rooms because Andrew likes to watch TV in the background while he works. It helps him focus. I cannot be near a TV if I am to get anything done. If there is a TV in the room that I can hear, I am mesmerized by it.
As a means of spending less time alone, I think I'm going to try to do some of my work in the computer lab at Merryfield. Then I will be around other grad students in my program. This should have the additional advantage of getting to know them better.
The University offers group counseling/support groups.I might see if I can be a part of the anxiety management group or the depression managment. I think it's kind of like alcoholics anonymous, but for other issues.
My third idea costs money and I'm not sure if its worth it. I love martial arts. Doing BJJ tend to make me happier. Maybe it's the social. Maybe it's the exercise. I think it's both. There's a school in town that I think is very good.
Well that's some things for me to try. There's also the old "just do it."

Unlikely Expectations

I am yet again faced with a feeling of disappointment upon reaching Sunday night. Since school started I have been making it through the week by telling myself how wonderful the weekend will be. At least so far, the weekend hasn't really lived up to my expectations. None of them have. I've been doing homework and doing it slowly... not because I'm doing an unusually good job or because it is unusually hard but because I am being inefficient. I always start the weekend hoping that I will get a lot of homework done or go on a really exciting adventure or both. I believe it's possible too.
It is, of course, theoretically possible, but statistically speaking very unlikely. Be that as it may I will believe in the weekend the same way that I used to believe I would fly when I jumped off the swing...after all, I did fly for half a second.

Ninja

Ninja that I drew out of my "Manga for the Beginner book"

The boy that I babysat this summer wanted me to draw something. I told him he could pick something out of my book and I would try to draw it if he did his homework. Not, surprisingly, he chose a ninja. Here is the result.

Reading Glasses

I have decided that I am far sited. I like books with large print and I squint a lot when I am reading books with ordinary sized print. I picked up a pair of reading glasses at the dollar tree. They have been serving me well. The benefits are three fold.
First of all I see my work more easily.
Second they make me feel studious and smart because I can pretend to be a stereotypical TV nerd.
Third, they help me stay focused because if I try to look at anything more than a couple of feet away while I have them on, it's a dizzying blur.
So, to sum up. They make me feel nerdy. I can see my work better and I can't see anything else.

A Weekend Well Spent

I didn't go hiking this weeked, but on Satuday I took a 5 hour nap. I feel much better for it. On Sunday afternoon I went to Eugene and spent several hours studying with Melanie at Starbucks. Starbucks is sort of like our place to work together. We did most of our scelaro (vampire movie script) writing there.
I still want to make scelaro into something more than a script. I would like to make a graphic novel type this out of it. My drawing needs improvement, and I think that may have to wait until after graduate school. 

Besides Scelaro, Starbucks has also been the location for many many study parties. In this case the studying is chemistry themed. Melanie is taking general chemistry. I am taking Environmental Chemistry. 

Finely Wildlife Refuge

Saturday Hiking

The View from the top of the hill at Chip Ross

I like hiking alone. I like hiking with friends too, but there is a special king of peace that I find in a long hike by myself. There is nobody to judge me of worry about me. I am only accountable to me. Nobody knows whether I made it up that hill without stopping or whether I sat down in the dirt and frowned at the view. I like it like that.

It's not really quiet out here. It's just a different kind of noise. There are lots of birds and bugs and the wind has a lot to say.  At the top of the hill in Chip Ross, I am greeted by a flock of Chestnut-Backed Chickidees and some Juncos. They are flitting around singing and taunting me in my attempts to take their picture. 

I don't have the trials to myself. A bad ass runner chick passes me. Then another about ten minutes later.

I am jealous of their physical ability but not of what they are doing. It looks extremely unfun to me. Now and then I have to hop off the trail for a mountain biker to whip by, but mostly I just get to listen to the woods. The last blackberries of the season are ripe. They try to lure me off the trail, but I will not be lured. The best blackberry in the world is not worth the rash I will have if I get into the Poison Oak. The Poison Oak is plentiful. A lot of this trail is Oak Savannah. It's a rare and beautiful, Willamette Valley ecosystem, and it's always rank with Poison Oak.

A view from Dan's Trail Mcdonald Forst

My beautiful nemesis, Poison Oak

Eggs

There are actually only two eggs in this frying pan

All four of the chickens are laying eggs now. They still get very excited about it. One of the cool things about raising chickens is that, when they first start laying, sometimes they lay really big eggs with double yokes. I've been enjoying eating fresh fried eggs this week.