Ok, So maybe I'm in a posting mood.

This is going to ramble a bit. Consider yourself warned.

Sam Patt and I are working on starting a small video production company. I set up a website for it. It was just sort of generic, waiting for real content to be added. After I put the real content up there I was going to worry about getting an appropriate URL. That was about a month, or more, ago. Now I'm stuck trying to remember the url of the hosting company i used. Yay me. I'll update you when I have more to say about that.

Some of you may know that my right knee has a problem that prevents me from running without extreme pain. I have located an office to look at it, but have been hesitant to make an appointment until I could isolate the dates of two other appointments my dad already made for me. (He doesn't always keep track of information like that very well.) I finally called and got the dates, so I'll be making an appointment to get my knee checked out soon. I also need to start my allergy shots again. I should call them soon too.

My academic situation is interesting. I've been a botany major in a special program called HTC (at Ohio University). In the program each student must have a "tutorial" every quarter. Tutorials are essentially guided independent studies where you'll meet with the professor one-on-one at least once a week to discuss progress. I get to choose the topics of the tutorials, and choose which faculty I want to have them with. My problem is simply that my tutorials haven't been going very well. I can't even find a topic that is interesting enough for tutorial in the fall. This leads my down three trains of though: A) I'm just getting bored or something and i'll get though it if i keep with it and keep pushing it. B) HTC might not be the best place for me. If I'm not motivated enough for the tutorial program, it would be better to just be a normal botany student. C) Botany really isn't the place for me.

This last option needs more explaining. If you know me, you know i like science. I knew that. So my question was, what branch do i like best? Physics is boring. Chemistry is too confusing. Geology, is mostly devoid of anything close to excitement, beyond boring. Biology is nice... but what type. Zoology, Microbiology, or Botany? Animals are kinda messy and gross. I couldn't imagine dissecting them all the time, or trying to feed or clean up after them.. But i really like the idea of genetic engineering. So, onto Micro or plants. Micro deals with small stuff only, but i love plants. So, Botany it was. The problem come not from the fact that i love botany more than the other branches, but from how i like interacting with science.

The thing is, I apply science. for biology that would be developing better planting techniques, or but genetically engineering organisms to better serve people. But in order to genetically engineer in the way my mind works we need to know a whole lot more how plants work as a system from dna to organism and every process in between. Now, we don't have that kind of working knowledge yet, so my options are reduced. I could do primary research to advance science to the point where people can just make the things they want, OR I could genetically engineer things the traditional way, and use a lot of trial and error to achieve results. The downside here is that it takes years to make good products, which is way to slow for me.

What got me thinking about this agian was some photoshoped pictures of cars. People were claiming they were full-body kits for smart cars, which of-course was not the case. (link if you'd like to see. I'd highly recommend) I figrued, you know what? I see what they did, they just halved the legth of the car, and then corrected the proportions of some things, like the tires, that needed to be normal-size. So I made one of my own. (link It's based off of a Saab 9-3) The problem the came when i started thinking about the mechanical features of the car. For example, the window on my version was too large to actually go down all the way because of the cut-out I made for the door. The engine and other "under the hood" things would be very cramped, not-to-mention the poor handling the vehicle was likely to have because of the high center of gravity relative to the stance.

I looked up the Mini to see how it was designed. I looked closer at the real Smart Car for two. And i thought about how i'd solve the small car problem, as I saw it. People want to have a car large enough to cary everything they need and their family or friends; however, they usually drive alone with very little luggage. The problem here is to make a car that is more appropriately sized for one person, but will accommodate more in times of need. For one person, you need very small car with a centrally placed seat, with room for luggage behind, probably in a hatch-back for easier access. To cary one passenger, add a fold-up seat in the back luggage area. For two, maybe you could widen the back bench a little to squeeze in two back there. What if you have to cary 3 passengers? Well, i don't know what to do but push the driver and all of his control back to the left, and put the extra seat to the driver's right. But now it looks like a normal sedan, albeit cramped because it's only just large enough to hold everyone.

No, this is a really cramped 4-seater, it's not even comfortable for the driver. so, the driver would really like to be back in the center, as long as he has fewer than 3 passengers. Solution: slide the driver back to center when you don't absolutely need the extra front seat. WHAT?!?! That's crazy! I know... I know. but listen. The petals are all hydraulic, so they can slide on rails from center to left and back, with hydraulic hoses to keep everything connected. The Seat slides on rails too, nothing too unusual here. The steering wheel and Dashboard are tricky, because they can't move... oh wait, the steering could be hydraulic too, couldn't it? So... you could put it on rails too, with the dash.. and just slide it back and fourth... But rails aren't pretty. Oh! but you could mount the wheel and dash panel on some kind of one-spoked wheel, so you could swing it into place, then lock it in positions. but then it wouldn't look balanced, and wouldn't the wheel be heavy? So off set it with a second spoke that acts as a counter balance, and add a GPS/back=up camera/whatever LCD display panel that moves opposite the wheel. Of course you'd need to put in mechanical things to keep the panels, wheel, and display the right orientation, but that wouldn't be hard.

Then I took a second to look at what i was doing. I was designing a car. Designing a car? That doesn't sound like a botanist.. more like an engineer.. oh, my dad was an engineer... and i used to like seeing how mechanical things worked and designing mechanical things.. But engineering is the application of Physics and Physics is boring... but I did really well in physics because it came so naturally to me...

So now I'm stuck. I was thinking that perhaps i should take some Comp Sci classes and head more towards bioinformatics, because i liked computer programing. This realization that I might like being an engineer caught me off-guard. That; however, does not help resolve my current dilemma. I'm loth to transfer colleges, but i don't want to be stuck in botany if i'd really be better off in engineering. I'm thinking about how I could give engineering a try so i have a better idea if i want to do it or not, before i make a mess of things but trying to change majors.

More updates to come, i hope. May your future be more clear than mine.

Passion

Through middle school and high school, every time any talk of planning for the future, of choosing the right classes, came up, it always seemed that the topic of jobs versus careers did too.  Jobs, of course, are things people do for money, where as careers are field that people get jobs in. 

The analysis can be deeper than that though. Jobs can be in any field, doing any kind of work that one is qualified or able to do. Careers are usually fields people put effort into studying so that they may better get jobs that they want.  The whole point in having a career is being able to focus ones interests so that the person may better qualify for jobs.

But where to focus? Somewhere you're interested? possibly. Somewhere that's fun? maybe. Somewhere that's easy? could work.  Some combination of these? more likely.  It is foolish to suspect the everyone need the same thing from their career path. While it may be unlikely for people to need only something that fulfills any of those categories, I would suggest that most people need some combination.

I can't assume to be ably to apply this to everyone, but the combination I need is something I'm going to call passion.  For me to be passionate about something, I have to have and interest in it, but interest alone is not enough.  It needs to be fun in it's own way, and it must not be too difficult, because I'll get bored and frustrated otherwise. If I get bored or frustrated I know I'll not be able to follow through, at lest not without an amount of conviction that I find difficult to muster.

So, if passion is a must, then I must choose a field that I am passionate about.  I've told some people that I'd have majored in several things at the same time, if I could. Botany would certainly have been one, but so too would have been computer science. I think psychology, Spanish, and something creative like film or photography would have made the cut too.  Really, if I could I'd take Chinese, French, and Arabic in addition to my Spanish, just so I could talk to nearly anyone. Of course, that is highly unreasonable for me at the present.

There was a time last year I was torn between a career in Botany/microbiology and computer science. I suppose that the living side of that choice won out just in time to make it on my application.  I know I had a passion for science all my life, and plants were a large part of that especially up into high school.  My involvement with the American Chestnut Foundation is small evidence of that.  I was passionate about chestnuts. I was passionate about helping fix Earth's problems, especially correcting human blunders.  I think I am still passionate about helping people, fixing their mistakes, and paving the way for a better future, but the work along the way is tripping me up.

I'm currently taking some of the advanced plant biology courses that will help me "save the world" some day, and all of the material (at least the majority) is very interesting. The problem I suppose comes in part with the tediousnesses of the work. Memorizing the life cycles of a dozen different organism seems pointless giving the millions that exist. The electron transport chain I've seen before, but never in the depth we've now discussed, but why didn't I feel like learning it to that depth? Where is the passion to find out as much as I possibly could about every process; how and why it works? 

Maybe it's just lost in the flood of new information. Maybe it's lost in the confusion surrounding my relationship turmoil. It is true that academics didn't seem as important when it looked like one of my friends was having a breakdown, and our close mutual friend turned on me when I tried helping her.  I'm still getting back on my feel from that one.

In Young Life we had a discussion about how many of the leaders loose the passion to lead for periods... but that the important thing is to remember why you are doing it, and to keep pushing yourself to do what you need to.  Eventually the passion will come back.  I'm taking things out of context again, but I'm hoping that this will apply to my Career. I want to see that passion in biology again. The passion to learn.  For now I'm trying to stick it out, because the threat of failing out of school is too great.

I think I'll survive this battle. It's a hard one, but I'm not so weak as to fail. And when I do get the upper hand, I'll be that much better for having done it.  Prayers are always appreciated along the way; however.

Course Selections

This coming Thursday I have to place my course selections for my senior year. I'm toning down the level of difficulty a little for this year, just so I can better focus on what I'm doing and don't constantly feel like I have a huge cloud of homework hanging over my head.

AP Computer Science
It's a continuation of the Into. to Computer Science that I'm taking this year, and the class I'm most looking forward to.

Spanish 4
Another level up from my current Spanish 3 class. I was torn between this and Genetics for a while, but after talking to the Genetics teacher, who said it dealt with mostly human genetics and was more hands-on, but not more difficult than AP Biology (which I'm currently taking), I decided that that wouldn't be interesting enough to displace my beloved espanol.

Web Design 2 and Macromedia MX
More exciting classes just to further what I can do with the Internet. Both list my previous Internet class as a prerequisite.

Composition 4 and World Literature
Mandatory (if not taking AP Brit. lit. which is really hard if you don't like writing). I did have the choice to take Brit. Lit. 2 instead of World Lit., but World Lit. sounds more interesting.

US Government
Again, this is mandatory, unless you take the AP version. I'm still not entirely sure which I want to take, but currently I'm planning on the lower one to avoid the flood of work associated with AP level classes.

Calculus
Between this and the AP form, which is supposed to be driven forcefully toward the AP test, I'd rather take the one that allowed the students to breathe. Students in the classes have recommended that if you want to continue math in college, you should take the regular form, just to get a better foundation.

Physics 1
In hindsight, I should have taken this class this year, and taken AP Chemistry next, but when I picked this year's classes, I was planning on taking many AP classes as a Senior. Oh, how our thoughts do change. Theretically, I could take AP Physics B, but I think I would have too much diffuculty following the strict format to solve problems, and remembering all of the formulas.

That covers the seven periods in a day, so I'm set. I marked down Genetics as an alternate and I'll probably put down some art stuff as alternates too. In reality, I'll probably get all of the classes I asked for, as they assign Seniors their classed first.

Hopefully next year is easier than this one, and keeps challenged without drowning me. We still have to get through a few more months of this first.