JB School

I've been thinking a lot about what's been working this term, and why, and meaning to share those thoughts for a while. Thanks to a conversation with my A&P instructor this afternoon, I think it's time.

There are a number of positive factors involved, to my mind:

Accountability:
This is where I get to abuse you folks, a bit. Having this blog not only serves to keep people informed, since I'm horrible about email, but it also keeps me on track. I know exactly what's due when and how much each assignment is worth, relative to one another. I'm also trying to be open in sharing my successes and challenges, both here and on Facebook, as well as with family and friends in other forums. This definitely a huge change for me; if I'm honest, in previous years my parents' inquiries on progress would always elicit the same basic commentary on how things were going ok, regardless of actual progress. Even more relevantly, I actually know how I'm doing in all my courses at this very moment (Hum - B, Mit - B, A&P - B, Com - A), rather than having a vague notion of individual assignment grades and being surprised when things aren't as rosy as I'd have hoped at the end of term. This is especially important now, as I'm having to work much harder than ever before to get reasonable grades due to the wonderful effects of aging and trauma on my memory capacity.

Technology:
I'll readily admit to being a tech addict, but I'm making it work for me here, as much as I can. Anatomy and Physiology, especially, is difficult to study efficiently. While testing utilizes 3d models, such models are not normally available other than in class, which means that constant exposure to the material, preferably utilizing multiple 2d views, is key. For this purpose, I've made a number of investments and acquisitions. I currently have an Anatomical Atlas, Grey's anatomy, Netter's Anatomy flash cards, and Ultimate Anatomy flash cards on my shelf, soon to be joined by a set of Netter's Anatomy volumes donated by my father. While these are handy, and certainly see a fair amount of use, they do have a few defects from my point of view - namely portability and alternate terms. To address this, I've taken advantage of a very handy birthday present, my Ipod touch.

As it happens, there's a phenomenally handy program available at a price of just $3.00 called Mental Case designed for creating and studying flashcards. I won't go into the detail of why this program is so wonderful, you can read their page for yourself, but suffice to say that one of the selling points for me is the fact that the app can tie into FlashcardExchange and download any of the thousands of flashcard sets there, including any relevant images, for offline study. This makes studying on the go just as accessible and easy as my ebook habit (I've already preached the virtues of ebooks on Stanza to many of you), and since I already use the site extensively (free to study any flashcards, free to create text based flashcards, $20 one time fee for the ability to create multimedia flashcards) for online study by creating my own cards, this is wonderfully effective. This gives me the benefit of having cards with the terms in use in class, with images of the actual models being used for testing, just seconds away anywhere I go. If you're interested in seeing what's possible, my cards are here, feel free to use them as you will.

Interface:
As you know, I'm horribly shy and introverted by nature (although it's been said, by a few people, that I'm the loud one of my family... go figure), with social skills that could best be described as stunted, if you were feeling generous. I'm trying to work on changing that, or rather changing my outward face (I'm still horribly shy, probably always will be). I think I can honestly say that all of my teachers know me on sight by now, because I've been trying to interact in all of my classes. I've even managed to pick up a few friends along the way. Historically, I'm the guy that stays in the back, with nothing to say, not even really engaged in the lesson. This is a good change, I think; it helps to stick things in my brain, and it seems like the teachers are willing to work with me when things aren't clear. Then again, that might speak to the quality of the teachers in question, which brings me to my next point.

If it don't work, fix it:
Not only am I shy, but I also tend towards passivity - if something doesn't work, my natural tendency is to simply wait it out. One of the bigger changes I made this term was dropping a teacher that simply wasn't meeting my needs. Frankly, in the scope of me taking action, this was huge! I've also taken to typing all of my notes (and heck, actually taking notes!) - the stuff that comes up in class is obviously the selection of material that the instructor actually cares about, and thus will be on the test. Once that's done, I just throw a keying question on each paragraph and set them up as more flashcards online - seems to make the key concepts stick a lot more than merely reading through the material.

Peer pressure, the good kind:
I'm also trying group study for the first time, with two of the young ladies from my A&P class, as well as trying to take the initiative in my other courses. By establishing a pattern where I have other people counting on me to get things done (like posting the week's flashcards), I tend to get 'em done much earlier than I would if I left myself the possibility of procrastination. This, in turn, leads to lower stress and greater retention. One other plus is that when my companions are having problems remembering something in particular, I tend to remember whatever mnemonic I come up with as well. Similarly, when I can't seem to lock something in place, their mnemonics (usually horribly inappropriate and/or hilarious) tend to stick. Ideally we'll expand our methodology to include locating bits on our own/each other's bodies this coming week for facial structures (which don't seem to be as horribly intertwined and layered as the limbs were), which my father says is more effective than rote memorization in this case.

Keep on learning:
I don't know if it's a matter of staying in studying mode or just changing the way I think, but it seems like my new hobby of photography and the associated reading/research that I've been doing have been helping to keep me focused on moving more and more information into the braincase. To an extent, it's almost thinking about thinking, most of the time. Heck, it even gets to the point of visualizing structures as I fall asleep. That right there is key, I think - visualization has never been a strong point for me, or even an ability I've consider myself to have any real measure of before now. Uploading and coding pics daily are also re-enforcing habits of responsibility - it's not something I have to do, it's something I choose to, but it helps to establish patterns. I would think that other semi-scholarly hobbies would provide similar insights and abilities. Beyond all that, hobbies provide a nice way to relax, from time to time.

Recreation in moderation
Frankly, I love to watch good TV, but the shows I like are being neglected, for the most part. I'm just not taking the time to watch. This doesn't mean that I don't have a show on while I'm working on whatever, from time to time, but I keep it to shows that are mostly background noise, and don't require full attention. I'll catch up later, and have the added benefit of being able to digest a season of TV at whatever pace I choose. Similarly, intense, drawn out gaming like MMOs is out. I have an obsessive personality, and I can admit it. Other than the horribly addictive, but short (and savable/pausable!), games that Nick has introduced me to from time to time (Half life 2, Plants vs. Zombies), I've been largely staying away from games as recreation, other than social games like Munchkin. This keeps me away from having to make the choice of one more level vs. schoolwork, which is a choice that has not always gone in a positive direction for me.

Motivation
Finally, I have a number of serious investments in making this work, and that helps me stay focused whenever various temptations intrude. First and foremost is my lovely wife, and the potential family we'll have some day - I'm not just doing it for me, or even mostly for me. The funding for being here is coming out of my pocket, even if a good portion of it is deferred through loans. Finally, I've realized that this almost definitely my last swing at a bachelor's degree. I'm older now, and it's already incredibly hard to process new concepts the way I used to. That's ok though - I'll make it work.

Well, it's done - registration opened for me 6 minutes ago, just registered for all of the classes I'm interested in. Not sure if I'll keep the accounting class; I'm considering doing a business minor, but I'm not really sure how useful that will be for the effort, since I already have an associate's degree in another field - going to talk it over with my adviser when I can catch him. The newspaper course isn't definite either; still waiting on a response from the instructor. That said, I'm fairly satisfied with how things land, even though the schedule is both heavy and spread out - should be about 50% heavy studying courses and 50% heavy doing courses.

**Web Reg** on Nov 10, 2009 Action 20089 JOUR 211 01 Undergraduate 3.000 Graded Pub/Student Newspaper
**Web Reg** on Nov 10, 2009 Action 22350 ART 207 02 Undergraduate 3.000 Graded Digital Photography
**Web Reg** on Nov 10, 2009 Action 25588 BIO 200 01 Undergraduate 2.000 Graded Medical Terminology
**Web Reg** on Dec 02, 2009 Action 24460 BIO 232 09L Undergraduate 0.000 Graded Human Anatomy/Phys II Lab
**Web Reg** on Dec 02, 2009 Action 25179 BIO 232 03 Undergraduate 4.000 Graded Human Anatomy/Phys II
**Web Reg** on Dec 02, 2009

Class hours:
M 10-11, 12-1, 2-3 ---- Jour (10-11, OW218), A&P (12-1, DOWE237), Med Term (2-3, BH106)
T 5-6:30 ---- Dig Pho (5-6:30, BH124)
W 10-11, 12-1, 2-6 ---- Jour (10-11, OW218), A&P (12-1, DOWE237), Med Term (2-3, BH106), Jour Lab (3-6, OW218)
R 11-2, 5-6:30 ---- A&P Lab (11-2, DOW257), Dig Pho (5-6:30, BH124)
F 12-1 ---- A&P (12-1, DOWE237)

17 in class hours

It's been an interesting month here in Klamath Falls. Classes have gone relatively smoothly, with the notable exception of my Biology Lab. While I'm currently carrying a composite "B" in the class, that does not include my latest quiz, which went quite abysmally. I've been very frustrated with the teaching and testing style there, so I've taken a step that is actually quite out of character for me - I fired my teacher. In this case, I was lucky enough to be able to swap my lab section to my lecture teacher, who had space due to attrition, and if his teaching style is consistent, I should be able to do much better from this point forward.

My humanities course is ok; it feels a bit "fluffy" - hard to tell exactly what to study, but it helps to fill in a requirement for later. Intercultural communications has produced a few insights into how attitudes and preconceptions are formed, and so far I seem to be getting along with both the teacher and a few of the students. Most notable is a new friend of mine from that class, Dennis, who is a fellow photographer with a heavy IT background; we've had a lot to talk about along the way.

I also have the good fortune to have two very nice young ladies, Roxanne and Jennifer, in both my Biology lecture and my Medical Imaging Technology course - they've turned out to be good friends and a great source of perspective along the way. I honestly thought that the MIT course would also turn out to be "fluff" as well, but it's actually been quite interesting and informative. Among other things, we have a guest speaker from one of the sub-fields every Friday, which has been great for insight into how things actually end up working in the real world.

As I'm sure you've seen, I've continued to play around with photography, and school has helped significantly in providing subjects to shoot. I've been trying to make most home games for our various sports, and let me tell you, shooting a game is VERY different from watching a game. Still, it's great practice, and I can definitely feel improvement in my technique and habits. There have also been a number of interesting school sponsored events to shoot, most recent being the haunted house put on by the local res hall for the local community. It was wildly popular, to the point that I didn't get around to actually going in, but the exit proved to be a pretty good place to get some candid costume shots.

Tuesday will be my last midterm, meaning that I'm already halfway to the winter break. I miss Eden terribly, even talking to her every night and having had a few short visits, but this is seeming much closer to workable.

I'm guessing there are a few of you out there that might like to see what my new "Village"-style dorm apartment looks like, so here's the quick tour:

My Room


Bathroom (One of two for four occupants)


Kitchen


Living Room


Yes, my roommates really DO keep the common spaces that neat and clean. What's more, unless we're all playing Munchkin, things get dead quiet and peaceful around 9ish. I think that's going to work out very well once the studying schedule ramps up.

Date	Day	Course	Special	Assigned
09-28-09	Mon	HUM 147		Read "Ancient Greece and the Formation of the Western Mind", pp 105-113
09-30-09	Wed	HUM 147		Read pp 155-158 in Mythology. Read pp 114-136, 1st chapter of Iliad, "The Rage of Achilles", Also read pp 190-200 (The Trojan War) in Mythology.
09-30-09	Wed	MIT 103		Have chap 16 & 26 read.
10-02-09	Fri	HUM 147		Video: Goddess Remembered
10-02-09	Fri	MIT 103		Have chap 5 & 6 read.
10-05-09	Mon	HUM 147		Discuss "The Rage of Achilles". Read "The Odessy, New Coasts and Poseidon's Son", pp 319-332. Also read in Mythology pp 85-878 "The Cyclops" and pp 211-229 "The Adventures of Odysseus"
10-07-09	Wed	HUM 147		Discuss "New Coasts and Poseidon's Son". Read pps 251-259 "Agamemnon and his Children" in Mythology
10-07-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
10-09-09	Fri	HUM 147		Video: Iphigenia
10-12-09	Mon	HUM 147		Video: Iphigenia
10-12-09	Mon	MIT 103	***	Health care professionals video quiz (30 pts/560 total)
10-14-09	Wed	HUM 147		Video: Iphigenia
10-14-09	Wed	COM 205	***	Presentation (Group 8) (5 pts/100 total)
10-14-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
10-14-09	Wed	MIT 103		Have chap 10 read.
10-16-09	Fri	HUM 147	***	Take home quiz on Iphigenia due (pts undetermined). Slides - Greek architecture and sculpture
10-19-09	Mon	HUM 147		Video: Art of the Western World: The Classical Ideal
10-19-09	Mon	MIT 103	***	Test 1 (80 pts/560 total)
10-21-09	Wed	HUM 147	***	1st Midterm Exam (Approx 100 pts/400 total), bring red Scantron
10-21-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
10-21-09	Wed	MIT 103		Have chap 23 read.
10-23-09	Fri	HUM 147		Read Aeschylus' "Agamemnon" pp 533-582, also read "Curse of the House of Atreus" pp 250-256
10-26-09	Mon	HUM 147		Discuss "Agamemon". Read Sophocles "Oedipus the King" pp 617-658. Also read pp 268-273 "Oedipus"
10-26-09	Mon	MIT 103	***	HIPPA/Confidentiality Video quiz (30 pts/560 total). Have chap 9 read.
10-28-09	Wed	HUM 147		Read pp 55-64 in Mythology "Dionysus". Video clip of Agamemnon.
10-28-09	Wed	COM 205	***	Presentation (Group 8) (5 pts/100 total)
10-28-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
10-28-09	Wed	MIT 103		Have chap 12 read.
10-30-09	Fri	HUM 147		Discuss "Oedipus the King"
10-30-09	Fri	MIT 103		Have chap 15 & 19 read.
11-02-09	Mon	HUM 147		Discuss Plato and the nature of reality. Video "The Cave".
11-02-09	Mon	MIT 103	***	Library Assignment due (50 pts/560 total)
11-04-09	Wed	HUM 147		Video "Barefoot in Athens". Read "The Apology of Socrates" pp 779-799
11-04-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Lecture midterm (50 pts/220 total)
11-04-09	Wed	MIT 103	***	Test 2 (80 pts/560 total)
11-06-09	Fri	HUM 147		Discuss Trial of Socrates. Read Euripides "Medea", pp 695-725
11-06-09	Fri	MIT 103		Ultrasound 2pm
11-09-09	Mon	HUM 147		Video "Medea"
11-09-09	Mon	MIT 103		Have chap 14 read.
11-11-09	Wed	HUM 147	###	NO CLASS - Veteran's Day Holiday
11-11-09	Wed	COM 205	***	Presentation (Group 8) (5 pts/100 total)
11-11-09	Wed	BIO 231	###	NO CLASS - Veteran's Day Holiday
11-13-09	Fri	HUM 147		Discuss "Medea"
11-13-09	Fri	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
11-13-09	Fri	MIT 103	***	Discussions due (40 pts/560 total)
11-16-09	Mon	HUM 147	***	2nd Midterm Exam (Approx 100 pts/400 total), bring red Scantron
11-18-09	Wed	HUM 147		Discuss Catullus' poetry. Read pp 230-236 "Aneas and Dido" and "The Passion of the Queen" from Virgil's The Aeneid pp 1085-1106
11-18-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
11-20-09	Fri	HUM 147		Discuss Virgil's "The Passion of the Queen"
11-20-09	Fri	MIT 103		Have chap 20, 21, & 22 read.
11-23-09	Mon	HUM 147		Slides: Roman architecture and art. Read "The Roman Empire" pp 1041-1043
11-23-09	Mon	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
11-23-09	Mon	MIT 103	***	Test 3 (80 pts/560 total)
11-25-09	Wed	HUM 147	***	Paper due, no late accepted (Approx 100 pts/400 total). Video: Art of the Western World: The Imperial Stones of Rome
11-25-09	Wed	BIO 231	###	NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Day Holiday
11-25-09	Wed	COM 205	***	Presentation (Group 8) (5 pts/100 total)
11-25-09	Wed	MIT 103	###	NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Day Holiday
11-27-09	Fri	HUM 147	###	NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Day Holiday
11-27-09	Fri	BIO 231	###	NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Day Holiday
11-27-09	Fri	MIT 103	###	NO CLASS - Thanksgiving Day Holiday
11-30-09	Mon	HUM 147		Judiasm and early Christian culture. Read the Bible "Job" pp 77-93.
11-30-09	Mon	COM 205	***	Final Paper due (Approximate, listed only as Week 10)
11-30-09	Mon	MIT 103		Have chap 24 read.
12-02-09	Wed	HUM 147		Early Christian art and architecture.
12-02-09	Wed	BIO 231	***	Weekly Quiz (15 pts/220 total)
12-02-09	Wed	MIT 103		Have chap 25 read.
12-04-09	Fri	HUM 147		Video: "A White Garment of Churches"
12-07-09	Mon	BIO 231	***	Lecture Final Exam, 4pm, College Union Auditorium (50 pts/220 total)
12-09-09	Wed	HUM 147	***	Final Exam, 10am (Approx 100 pts/400 total)
Unscheduled	---	COM 205	***	Midterm (20 pts/100 total)
Unscheduled	---	COM 205	***	Final paper (50 pts/100 total)
Unscheduled	---	COM 205	***	Class participation (10 pts/100 total)
Unscheduled	---	MIT 103	***	Final Exam (200 pts/560 total)

Sunset from the dorm, with haze from forest fire smoke

Well, it's finally started. I officially moved down to the dorms at OIT this past Wednesday, and started classes on on Monday. It's surreal, and feels amazingly disconnected down here, but at least I've begun heading towards the eventual position in Medical Imaging I've been aiming for for nearly a year already.

Eden remains up north, regrettably, but we both know we're doing the best we can to make this work, and she should be able to visit relatively shortly (It actually works out to be slightly cheaper to take the train than to drive down and back, which is nice.)

Weather has been interesting since I arrived, starting in the high 80s/low 90s last week with an insulating blanket of smoke in the air from a forest fire that's been burning for a while nearby. It's been bad enough at points that when I went up to Crater Lake to get some follow up photos to compare with our earlier trip, the lake could not be seen at all from the various observation points, as the smoke collects in the crater bowl. This week the temperature has dropped dramatically, to the point that we were hit by hail yesterday and we have a strong possibility of snow sometime this week.

My new roommates are interesting, and even somewhat encouraging to me from a job standpoint. All of us have tales of recent layoffs, are returning to school after some level of break, and it seems that we get along nicely. Chad is working on a degree in Geomatics, and also has a taste for baking that will be interesting to sample as the year moves along. Nick is heading into Computer Engineering, and has already given me a chance to work out how to mount Ubuntu on a usb drive to get him up and running for class. Rounding out the group is Dustin, a Mechanical Engineer with a display setup that I'm sincerely lusting after to no end. Seriously, he gives the teleconference room at Netflix (which we were explicitly barred from photographing) a run for the money.

We haven't had a chance to do terribly much together sociably yet, other than endless Residence Hall meetings, but I think that may change as the term goes on, depending on what free time evolves. At the least, I've gotten them all started on Munchkin, and I'll be dragging at least two of them out to Mongolian BBQ tonight to celebrate successfully withdrawing from the Res Hall meal plan after a battle. I don't want to say too much on the subject here to avoid the possibility of repercussions, but suffice to say the math used for the current program's implementation is more than a little bit funny. That, combined with the fact that my budgeting figures were off from either not noticing applicable charges or working with 2008 rates (which are the only rates available online), had had me landing several hundred dollars behind at the end of the week. At the moment, I'm back to being in the black, even after books, and with a bit of a surplus for the short term. It's a good thing.

I've been to all of my classes now, save for my A&P lab, and I've got to say that my overall impression has been positive, especially A&P itself. The instructors seem personable and knowledgeable, even friendly. Moreover, the pacing of the courses seems manageable, with each only having a relatively small number of deliverables due. Even given the fact that the size of these assignments exceeds what I was expecting, I think I'll have an easier time dealing with several projects rather than numerous small bits of homework.

I'm also working with some new medication that seems to be helpful in allowing me to focus on a single task with comparatively few distractions. Over the summer I got tested and confirmed that I have a relatively severe case of ADHD. I must admit that initially I wasn't very happy about this, and felt almost as if the disorder were some kind of excuse for not working hard enough, but after having some time to reflect and see some results from the medication, I'm very encouraged and hopeful. Obviously I haven't had much of a chance to see how it works in a scholastic setting yet, but I've definitely noticed some level of reaction in my personal life. I'm finding that I'm able to hold on to at least some names in new social situations, and even recall bits of information encountered in passing that I haven't consciously tried to memorize, both tasks that have been difficult if not impossible in the recent past.

Unfortunately, I just noticed a warning on the bottle yesterday that it can induce headaches, which may partially explain the resurgence of migraines I've had recently. The week before I came down was filled with pain, dizziness, and nausea to almost crippling levels constantly, which I attributed to stress. Certainly the very worst of it was the day before I drove down, and I've had migraine spikes before from stress, most notably during the brief period while I was attending Idaho State. On the other hand, the intensity seems to have dropped significantly since I got here, and has returned primarily to pain only. I guess we'll have to see how things shake out over the next few weeks. If it does end up being medication induced, I'm sure I can find an alternative without this side effect.

In any case, it's been a good week thus far, and I'm in a pretty positive mood. I guess that's really all you can ask for, especially considering the distance from friends and family. Mind you, I am keeping Circled by Hounds and Kathryn Claire playing as a nearly constant background, just to hear some familiar voices. You can't blame me for that, can you?

Finally, here's all of the information you might need to get to me while I'm down here this term. For phones, the number you probably have (503-916-9367) will technically still work, but is directed to a pay-as-you-go cell phone and I'd prefer to limit it's use. As an alternative, please try to use my Google voice number (503-395-8561) for both voice and SMS. This has several advantages for me, not the least of which being that incoming voicemails and SMS are transcribed and forwarded via email, meaning that I can respond (quietly) while in class if necessary. If I'm available, calls will still forward to my cell phone or to the dorm room (once the line is fixed). The other major advantage is that I'm more likely to notice the call, or the message if I'm not around, since my phone is nearly always turned to silent these days.

My mailing address is:
Josh Byram
Oregon Institute of Technology
ATTN: Residence Halls
3201 Campus Dr. PMB 2703
Klamath Falls, OR 97601

If you're in the area, you can come visit in the new "Village" residence hall, room 2301A. I'd prefer, however, that such visits dodge the dates where I'll have something due as much as possible. I'll be posting my assignment calendar here shortly, as that worked rather well last time as a motivator to stay on top of things (not to mention it ended up being a handy mobile reference for me). My class schedule is also on my shared google calendar; if you don't have access to it and would like to be added, please let me know.

Well, I've gotten back my final grades. I actually did just slightly better than I had expected, making a C in both Anatomy and Trigonometry, and a B in Chemistry. I was very sure that I had only gotten a D in Anatomy, considering how hard I struggled with it as a whole, and during the final practical and test in specific. Regardless, I'll be retaking it in the fall, both to get a better understanding of the basics so that I'm comfortable with it, and to stay in the swing of things, so to speak, so that I don't shift into it point blank in the winter for the next section.

I still haven't heard back about my assignment for the dorms this fall; that's due to come back sometime in the next month or so. I've got to say, I'll be sorely disappointed if I do get put in the main double-assignment rooms, but it is what it is.

I'm afraid there's really not much more to say, except fall is coming up FAST. I'm looking forward to it, at least in the sense of wanting to get things started finally, but there's still a lot of trepidation, not to mention a bit of missing Eden in advance. I guess I'll be back here in a few months. In the meantime, feel free to follow our summer adventures on http://joshandeden.blogspot.com.

Tomorrow is my final lab practical for A&P, so I'm studying like crazy and don't really have time for an extensive post. That said, I just finished up writing my final literature review, and the subject article I used is just absolutely fascinating to me. I thought maybe you folks would appreciate it as well.

Click here for the online version of the article.

Here's the close on my review, and my honest thoughts on the subject.

"There are many possible connections that I could make between this subject matter and our own studies, but I think that the most poignant I can offer would be that this is an article that offers me hope. To clarify, I’ve had extensive problems with memory since my first wife passed away in 2001. I’ve often attributed this to the trauma associated with that event, but after reading this article I have doubts about this. It seems to me that my memory and cognitive degeneration might as easily be attributed to the near fugue state I adopted for several months after, followed by a number of IT jobs that demanded very little of me in the way of new learning. In effect, by avoiding the mental exercise of continuing to learn new skills, I may have contributed to degeneration that in turn makes it immensely harder for me to acquire new information. Following the lines of reasoning within the article, it may eventually be possible for me to increase my capacity for learning by continually adding new skills. In addition, the article mentions continual mental exercise as a means of delaying the onset of degenerative mental diseases, especially Alzheimer’s. Given that my maternal grandfather has been affected profoundly by this disease, it gives me hope that even if I am to follow in his genetic footsteps in the decades to come, I may be able to stave off the onset. "

School has been hectic, crazy, and discouraging lately... extemes in all three cases. I did get the score back on my Anatomy practical, as well as the second midterm, both landing in the D range, which is really upsetting, especially because I thought I did very well on the second midterm. My math midterm I did very well on for the actual answers, not so well on in terms of illustrating how I got there (in precisely the manner the teacher wanted), which pretty much murdered my score; when the instructor mailed it back to me the entire thing was pretty much just covered in his green chickenscratch. Ironically, the chemistry couse seems to be going very well still - if nothing else, the hours of homework seem to hammer in the concepts ok.

With the scores on the two latest big things in A&P and my general feeling of just being overwhelmed and lost with the sheer volume of information each week (all vocabulary and visual stuff, not concepts - I do much, much better at holding on to concepts), I put a lot of thought into whether or not I should withdraw from the course and just take it again this fall. I had convinced myself that my grade had to be in the D range and likely to fall. Fortunately, my instructor is a good guy and willing to lend a (digital) ear - turns out that with everything balanced out, I've still got a 74% in lab (35% of grade) and a 77% in lecture (65% of grade), which actually puts a B still in reach, in theory. Don't think I'll get it, but I feel much more confident about at least holding a C if I pretty much devote half my life to studying for the next few weeks. Final practical in lab is in 12 days and the lecture final is on June 8th. Eden is being very supportive during this time, which I really, really appreciate.

As a side effect of getting myself worked up over this, I took the time to calculate current grades in my other two classes, and am not doing bad, considering how out of control this all feels. As of right now, I stand at a 83.5% in Chemistry and a 75% in Trig.

School has been interesting, these past few weeks. A&P, especially, has been enormously challenging. I got my score back from my first midterm last week, as an 87%, which is better than I thought I had done, and encouraging. The lab practical this week, however, did not seem to go well at all. Among other things, I was enormously frustrated by the phrasing of the questions - it was not clear at all what kind of answer the instructor was looking for in most cases (IE type of tissue, stratum within the skin, type of cell, etc). I honestly am not sure I passed, even with a massive amount of studying, including a 5 hour cram session just before the actual test.

My Trigonometry midterm, on the other hand, seemed to go very well. This time around the rules for manipulating terms seem to make sense. A 100% grade is conceivable, although I suspect the actual score will be in the high 80s to 90s due to a misapplication or two. Regardless, there were no questions where I didn't have a clue. I did take a good 20 minutes to remember the right way to find the answer to the last question, and a further 20 minutes to find my car again after that, so my memory issues are still well in place :/.

The online chemistry course continues to be weird in application. While I am understanding the principles we're discussing, the format for expressing that understanding in quizes and homework continues to be beyond annoying and finicky. The sheer volume of homework is daunting, requiring at least 3-4 hours at the computer just for entering the answers each week. Oh well, at least I don't feel like I'm struggling here, so very much.

Eden and I did get a chance to visit OIT a few weeks ago, and got some questions answered. Bottom line, the courses I need for the medical imaging degree are offered only once a year, in lockstep, so I'm going to be in school for four years, technically. The fourth year will actually be an externship at a hospital, with tests and so forth along the way, leading up to a single make or break licensing exam at the end of senior year. Fun, fun.

I've submitted my deposit and bid for dorm space this fall, but won't find out anything about where I'll end up until July - the school will be opening some new dorm spaces then that are more or less apartment style - four bedrooms with a single shared kitchen/living space. After seeing the existing dorms, I think that it would be a good compromise between living alone and in the midst of chaos. If I don't make it into the apartments, the fallback is a dual room in the existing dorms, as I understand it - not great, but I can put up with it for a term if I need to.

The actual courses are pretty daunting - there's going to be a huge amount to absorb. On the plus side, the student to teacher ratios are just awesome, if they're true. Average is 10 to 1 in lecture and 5 to 1 in lab. There's also a lot of out of class availabilty - the students for our program actually have the keycodes to work in the lab after hours, and from what the students we spoke to said, the instructors are very supportive of getting you what you need to work through things. The equipment is only a few years old; the actual building is technically still under construction in parts.

I guess the fact that I'll be taking longer than I'd hoped to get through this ends up being a good thing. I'm certain that I would not be able to maintain a part time job as well as the 15-17 credit hours of this level of courses and still get a passing grade. The way things land, I should be able to do a lot of the support coursework during my freshman year and keep the number of credits per term closer to 12. Finances are still going to be mighty tight, so I'll be looking for scholarships as well.

One item that might end up being critical is the fact that the location of the senior year externship is based on a random drawing during the Junior year. There is a potential loophole to this, however. If you are sponsored by a hospital (functionally, you've gotten a hospital to say "yeah, we'll take him during senior year and put him to work") before you're officially accepted to the medical imaging program (which should be late freshman year), you don't draw your externship - you're spoken for. Given that, I'll be trying to find a job or a volunteer position this summer, preferably at Southwest Washington, where Eden spent most of Friday. Ideally, I'll be able to show my potential value and get them to speak for me. We'll see how that lands later, I guess.

School has started again - actually this is already the second week in. Last term finished out well - I actually made the honors list with a final GPA of 3.5; 3 As and a C. This term, however, is turning out to be both aggravating and intimidating. My Anatomy and Physiology texts still haven't arrived from being ordered online, which means that I've had only the copies of the classroom presentations to study from; not an ideal situation. The fact that the course has an immense amount of information to memorize and that a huge proportion of that data is visually oriented means that I'm struggling a lot. Ironically, once I get through these three terms of A&P the courses should be somewhat easier for me, as the format of the information I'll need should return to something closer to what I can handle.

My Chemistry course is already driving me bugnuts - the assignments and homework load are incredibly voluminous, while the actual lessons are disappointing at best. Case in point, I just spent three hours this afternoon showing my work on remedial math. Problems involving converting between cash in nickels and quarters were about the peak. I'm hoping that this is just to make sure that everyone starts at the same level, and that the actual chemistry stuff will be worth going through this - between the level of the material and the idiosyncracies of the grading methods (the assignments and homework are processed through two different sites using completely different interfaces and notation), I'm finding the course to be incredibly agrivating so far.

Trigonometry, on the other hand, has been a bit more satisfying than I thought it would be. Not sure that the methodology of the last few chapters has stuck yet, but the math makes more sense to me than last term's did, at least so far. We'll see if that lasts, but I have hopes.

I also got a note from my mother last night that I finally got my acceptance letter from OIT - technically it just gets me to the school; I won't go into the actual program for another year if I make it into that, but it's another big step along the way. Eden and I are heading down there in a week for the orientation gig; I'm actually looking forward to that quite a bit. We're going to round off the numbers and actually make it a run from Friday to Sunday so that we can enjoy the trip and take a look at Crater Lake. Pictures will probably go to our blog when we get back - I've only seen it once before, but I'm really looking forward to sharing it with my lovely wife and seeing what she'll manage to pick up on the camera.

As a final bit of news, my student loans finally got straightened out for this term and last. It was a pain to get everything in order, but as soon as the funds finish getting dispersed next week, I won't technically have to worry about it again until the fall. That said, I'll be getting a head start on this next time.

Signing up for classes for next term has been a nightmare involving way too much time and way too many people. After much hullaboo and effort, last Friday I managed to get shoehorned into the Biology course I needed, but that required giving up my slot in Chemistry (no other openings) and rearranging my math and writing courses. When I first tried to sign up, the registration service would not let me sign up for much of anything, as my basic reading and writing qualifications had expired (apparently they do this after about 5 years). This wouldn't have been such a big deal except that A.) I had gone in and "fixed" this with a counselor last term after experiencing the same problem. B.) The advisors able to fix this were so backed up that it took a three hour wait to get in to see one. C.) Once I did finally get in to see an advisor and fix the requirements, registration services were up and down like crazy over the next week or so, meaning that when I did finally get signed up for classes, the biology course I needed was closed on all campuses, save for a few slots in various classes on Sylvania. Unfortunately, due to an error in the bureaucracy, there were no matching Lab slots for those lecture classes, so it was impossible to sign up for the class at all.

This past Friday they finally added a new lab section, which caused a number of students to shift around, opening a slot at Cascade campus. I swapped my schedule to jump into the new slot, causing the aforementioned loss of my Chemistry course. Given that they took the registration system down for maintenance on Friday at noon, I assumed that that was that, and that I'd just have a 13 credit term and have to take Chemistry during the summer. Eden asked me last night if I had anything left to turn in at my Biology final today, which I was 98% certain I didn't, but I logged on to the course webpage for paranoia's sake this morning to be sure. No assignment, but some wild hair prompted me to check registration services again. Not only were they up, but a Chemistry section I could use had an open slot again due to someone dropping! So now, I'm back to 18 credits, have all the classes I wanted to get done this term, and only need to go to classes on Monday and Wednesday at Cascade campus (the closest to my new digs, with working wifi in all of the buildings). I'm pretty happy about that.

Tonight's Biology final will be the last, and, in point of fact, will likely have absolutely no impact on my grade, as the teacher set things up to drop the lowest of three tests. Given that my lowest score on the other two tests was 89%, I'm pretty sure I won't do better, but who knows? We're required to take all three tests anyway, right? From my calculations, I'm riding somewhere between a high B and a low A based on my assignments and lab work I've gotten back, but there's enough wiggle room in the ones I don't have back that it could go either way. I guess I'm pretty satisfied with either grade, even though the A would be much much better for OIT - I've still understood a heck of a lot more in this course than I thought I would at the start.

Not so much so with Algebra. Honestly, I don't know what's happened to my brain in the intervening years, but math-wise I feel pretty stupid these days. Way back in high school I won a State Championship in Algebra. Right now, if the final I took on Monday works out the way I think it did, I'll have a C. Really not happy with that at all, but in reflection, I've struggled so much with this that I'll be pleased to be done with it. It's kind of odd - one of the things I liked about math growing up was that it had definite answers, and if I understood the principles involved, there was almost a Lego-style click in my head as I manipulated terms from one form to another. It made sense. Right now, I still get that click for some things, but others just don't work at all. They make sense in reviewing problems on the board and when using them for homework, but I can't seem to make them work on arbitrary problems. Makes me a little nervous for the upcoming Trigonometry section, but it'll be the last outright math class that I need for this degree, so I'll just grin and bear it.

In any case, this'll probably be the last post on this blog until I either get my final grades back or the new term starts up again on the 29th of the month. We're still posting pictures to the other blog and will probably have some new ones if we do the honeymoon thing (waiting to see about some car repairs on Eden's bug before making decisions). Feel free to stop by and wander through the posts there!

Well, I've just given my final speech for class. Given the positive response to prior speeches, I thought I'd post the text here. Personally, it just plain sounds wrong - the required number of cited sources over a 6 minute speech force nearly every other word to be written by someone other than me. Regardless, it is an issue I feel strongly about, so I guess it's the overall sentiment that counts.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected to his first term as president of the United States. One of the many campaign promises that he used to achieve this victory was a commitment to ending discrimination against homosexual and bisexuals in the military. On July 20th, 1993, a new policy was distributed to military commanders to fulfill that promise, popularly known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. I’d like to take a few minutes to tell you how this policy has been received, how it has affected service members, and why the policy should be repealed.

When the policy was first released, it was considered controversial enough that the full text was published in the New York Times on July 20, 1993, as an article entitled “Gay rights in the military – The Pentagon’s New Policy Guidelines on Homosexuals in the Military”. A few selected sections stand out from the body of the text, such as “Sexual orientation will not be a bar to service unless manifested by homosexual conduct” and “Neither investigations nor inquires will be conducted solely to determine an individual’s sexual orientation.” Initially, this sounds like a somewhat reasonable compromise between the needs of the organization and the rights of the individual. Further on in the text, however, we see that “No distinction will be made between off-base and on-base conduct.” Taken as written, this effectively means that service members are only allowed to have heterosexual relationships for the duration of their service. The document even acknowledges problems with this policy, stating openly that “As long as service members continue to be separated from military service for engaging in homosexual conduct, credible information of such behavior can be a basis for extortion.”

As of 2003, nearly 10,000 service men and women had been discharged from service in the U.S. military under this policy, as outlined on November 23rd, 2003, in the article “’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – 10 years and 10,000 discharges later”, written by Aaron Belkin and Tobias Barrington Wolff of the San Francisco Chronicle. Many of the people being discharged had otherwise unblemished service records and would otherwise have gone on to serve for years to come. A notable event among those discharges was the widely publicized discharge of 28 language experts in 2002, including specialists in Arabic in Korean, at a time when we sorely needed their expertise. Another article, “’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Turns 15”, written by Mark Thompson of Time Magazine on January 28th, 2008, relates the experiences of Joan Derrah, a Navy captain that kept her lesbian orientation a secret her entire career. One of the more vivid images offered is the experience of having to give a survey to 250 of her subordinates. She recalls the survey asking “Do you know a gay person, and, if you did, what would you do?” Shortly after, she had to excuse herself to the bathroom to be physically sick. At the time of this article, the number of service members discharged had risen to almost 12,000.

Captain Derrah’s experience was certainly not unique, and it illustrates another disparity introduced by the policy. According to the article “’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Hits Women Much More”, written by Thom Shanker of the New York Times on June 23rd, 2008, “… (while) women make up 14 percent of Army personnel, 46 percent of those discharged under the policy last year were women. And while 20 percent of Air Force personnel are women, 49 percent of its discharges under the policy last year were women.” The military was at a loss to explain this disparity. In response to the needs of personnel discharged for sexual orientation, the article goes on to quote Eileen M. Lainez, a Pentagon spokeswoman on personnel issues, who states that “Separated members have the opportunity to continue to serve their nation and national security by putting their abilities to use by way of civilian employment with other federal agencies, the Department of Defense or in the private sector, such as with a government contractor.”

The policy has not been popular, especially within the ranks of the military itself. In the article “104 retired military brass against ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’”, published November 17th, 2008 on CNN.com, over 100 retired military officers have signed a statement asking that the policy be repealed. The first signature to be found on the document is that of Retired Admiral Charles Larson, a former proponent of the policy when it was instated in 1993. Of the many arguments given to support the repeal of this policy, one specific quote stands out; “To meet its goals of increasing numbers, the military has recruited thousands of convicted felons and illegal drug users under its ‘moral waivers’ program… ….while dismissing hundreds more for being gay.” With president Barack Obama now in office, it now seems likely that such a repeal may be possible. A recent article entitled “Obama to End Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy was posted January 14th, 2009 on Foxnews.com by Carl Cameron. The article quotes the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs responding to the question “Is the new administration going to get rid of the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell policy?” – he stated “… you don’t hear a politician give a one-word answer much. But it’s ‘Yes.’” Specific plans for how this will be carried out were not given, however.

In the end, the current military policy towards homosexuals and bisexuals in the armed forces is not only wrong and hurtful; it is also counterproductive towards achieving mission goals. As you’ve heard today, the policy forces such service members to deny their sexual orientation completely for the duration of their service, and leaves them powerless if any mention of their prior activities comes to light. Thousands of capable men and women have been released from service, while others from questionable backgrounds are called in to fill the gap. Many that have had long, distinguished careers within the Army, Navy, and Marines have stepped forward to voice their dissent, to call attention to this injustice. Our new president seems ready to take action to correct the issue, but to do so, he will need the full support of the legislature behind him. I urge you to consider this issue fully, and to make your opinions felt. Write to Senators Merkley and Wyden, as well as Representative Wu, and let them know in no uncertain terms that you will no longer stand for such an unfair policy.

So, I'm compelled to admit that I've neglected this blog a bit for the last few weeks, in favor of actually getting schoolwork done amid wedding arrangements. At this point, the deed is done (see it at joshandeden.blogspot.com!) and I've just gotten to my last actual class for this term, with finals week starting on Monday. It's a relief, but things are still busy.


I've just gotten my grade back from my last speech (76/80!), and, while the text of that speech is lost somewhere in the ether (my laptop is busy trying to die), I'd like to share a handout I gave. I chose to give my speech on the process of making bread, and gave out copies of my favorite low effort recipe. Among other things, I think you'll be amazed by the nutritional information given below - note that these quantities are for the entire loaf; most commercial breads list similar values per slice. In any case, here's a recipe that will take perhaps 15 minutes of effort, total, spread over 24+ hours, resulting in incredibly tasty, healthy bread.

No Knead Bread

Summarized from: http://www.recipezaar.com/Original-No-Kneed-Bread-352798

Original Recipe adapted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html?_r=2&ref=dining

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1 Loaf 737g (Recipe makes 1 Loaf)
Calories 1367
Calories from Fat 33 (2%)
Amount Per Serving %DV
Total Fat 3.7g 5%
Saturated Fat 0.6g 2%
Monounsaturated Fat 0.4g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1.6g
Trans Fat 0.0g
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 2340mg 97%
Potassium 421mg 12%
Total Carbohydrate 286.5g 95%
Dietary Fiber 10.3g 41%
Sugars 1.0g
Protein 39.1g 78%

Ingredients:

• 3 cups flour

• 1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

• 1 teaspoon table salt

• 1 1/2 cups warm water

Directions:

1. Mix dough: The night before, combine all ingredients in a big bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough just comes together. It will be a shaggy, doughy mess. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit 12-20 hours on counter top.

2. Shape & preheat: The dough will now be wet, sticky and bubbly. With a wet spatula, dump the dough on a floured surface. Fold ends of dough over a few times with the spatula and nudge it into a ball shape. You can use your hands if you like, just keep your hands wet so that the dough does not stick. Generously dust a cotton towel (not terrycloth) with flour. Set dough seam side down on top of towel. Fold towel over the dough. Let it nap for 2 hours. When you’ve got about a half hour left, slip your covered pot into the oven and preheat to 450°F.

3. Bake: Your dough should have doubled in size. Remove pot from oven. Holding towel, dump wobbly dough into pot. Doesn’t matter which way it lands. Shake to even dough out. Cover. Bake 30 minutes. Uncover, bake another 15-20 minutes or until the crust is beautifully golden and middle of loaf is 210°F Remove and let cool on wired rack. If not eating right away, you can re-crisp crust in 350F oven for 10 minutes.

Today is President's Day, a federal holiday. Unfortunately, for me, PCC has decided not to treat it as a holiday and has classes today. This posed a problem, because the wedding shower being thrown by Eden's aunt Pat tonight would conflict with my second exam in Biology, a class I NEED to do well in. With that in mind, I talked things over with the instructor and took the exam early, on Friday. On both this exam and the last, she seemed rather stunned at how fast I finished. I don't understand that - this is purely a knowledge-based exam; there's no problem solving or actual thought involved - just recall and understanding. You either know an answer and can respond immediately, or you use the other answers and questions to at least eliminate incorrect answers, neither of which take much time at all. I guess it's just a matter of perception. I get along well with tests, especially multiple choice or simple answer; give me a PHD level physics test in this format and I should at least be able to do better than pure chance just by taking advantage of the structure. I don't really get how this isn't a common skill. In this class, the exams come in three sections, one multiple choice, one short answer, and one essay or multipart - it suits me very well.

In any case, it seemed to go fairly smoothly; I'd judge my likely grade to be in the 80-90% range, which feels pretty good. This exam was much, much more memory based; I haven't studied that hard in a long while, if ever - I was very nervous about it and was still throwing around flash cards minutes before I took the test to try to keep what I needed in short term memory.

Not too much else to report on the school front, at the moment; a couple of largish projects due this week, but I'm not done quite yet. On the other hand, the schedule for next term has been published, and I've worked out a preliminary setup for myself. Can't register until the 27th, but if this works out it'll be a good way to keep things relatively close to my new digs.

WR122 English Composition

26452 Cascade / TH / 204 11:00 AM-12:50 PM

MW 30-Mar-2009 thru 10-Jun-2009
Instructor: Melody Wilson
Tuition: credit Fees: $0.00

MTH112 Elementary Functions (Trig)

21556 Cascade / TH / 200 03:30 PM-05:50 PM

MW 30-Mar-2009 thru 10-Jun-2009
Instructor: Matthew W Funk
Tuition: credit Fees: $0.00

BI 231 Human Anatomy and Physiology

Lecture
22009 Cascade / JH / 104 06:00 PM-07:20 PM

MW 30-Mar-2009 thru 10-Jun-2009
Instructor: Mark M Perkins
Tuition: credit Fees: $12.00
22014 Cascade / JH / 110 07:30 PM-08:50 PM

MW 30-Mar-2009 thru 10-Jun-2009
Instructor: Mark M Perkins
Tuition: credit Fees: $0.00

CH104 General Chemistry

Linked Sections: Choose one section from each type below.
Lecture
22416 Cascade / JH / 112 01:00 PM-03:50 PM

Sa 04-Apr-2009 thru 13-Jun-2009
Instructor: Tracey Scherban
Tuition: credit Fees: $12.00
Recitation
and Cascade / JH / 112 04:00 PM-04:50 PM

Sa 04-Apr-2009 thru 13-Jun-2009
Instructor: Tracey Scherban
Lab
23641 Cascade / JH / 214 09:00 AM-11:50 AM

Sa 04-Apr-2009 thru 13-Jun-2009
Instructor: Tracey Scherban
Tuition: credit Fees: $0.00

OR

Lecture
WEB » 24352 - 30-Mar-2009 thru 12-Jun-

2009
Instructor: Kathleen E Carrigan
Web Course: Important - See Course Information Page.
Tuition: credit Fees: $20.00
For information, contact Cascade
Recitation
and - 30-Mar-2009 thru 12-Jun-

2009
Instructor: Kathleen E Carrigan
For information, contact Cascade
Lab
WEB » 24354 - 30-Mar-2009 thru 12-Jun-

2009
Instructor: Kathleen E Carrigan
Web Course: Important - See Course Information Page.
Tuition: credit Fees: $0.00
For information, contact Cascade

People seemed to like my last speech post, so I thought I'd share the tribute speech I gave last Saturday. There should have been a video for this, but unfortunately the recorder didn't work quite right, so you won't be seeing me stumbling through this. In any case, here it is - it seemed to go over pretty well.

"Good morning. I'd like to take a moment to tell you all about my favorite cyborg. Like many of you, I've chosen to make my tribute speech about my mother because she is special to me, but I'd like to think that my mother, Kathy, is simply special. Over the years, she's shown incredible personal strength, overwhelming familial support, and a wealth of skill and creativity in any endeavor she's chosen.

My mom has Parkinson's disease. For those of you not familiar with the disease, it is a disorder that impairs motor function due to problems in generating and utilizing dopamine, causing tremors, speech impairment, and lack of mobility. Michael J. Fox has brought a lot of visibility to the disease lately, but at this time there is no known cure. My mom was first diagnosed over 15 years ago, and at that time, the expected median mortality was a decade.

Mom has always been a fighter; she hasn't let the disease define her, hasn't given up, and continues to live life just as fully as she always has. While her handwriting has noticeably degraded over time, her other symptoms have proved to be largely manageable through a combination of determination, medication, and an experimental surgery performed a few years back, here at OHSU. My mom now has a chip implanted in her brain to assist with signal transmission, and a battery pack in her chest. She even comes with a remote control now, to adjust the signal level.

She's shown her strength in other ways as well, especially in supporting my brother and myself as we've grown. We've both had difficulty in school, for a variety of reasons. Neither of us took high school very seriously, and have spent the last several years in and out of college. She never gave us a hard time about it, and let us both come to the decision to give school a real try for our own reasons, backing us to the hilt each time we found a new direction to try. When I decided to join the Navy, she supported me there too, even though it would mean rarely getting to see me for years at a time, and there was a very real chance that her disease would get much worse while I was gone. Later, when it was time to leave the Navy to be with my wife Jessie, she helped me figure out how to make it happen. Not long after that, she helped me to survive when Jessie passed away. I think that time was especially hard for her; she had treated Jessie like the daughter she'd never had, and had become quite close. Even though she was hurting immensely from the loss, she put me first, and helped me see that there were many reasons to still participate in living from day to day.

When I was very young, my mother had a business called "Sunshine Originals", a venue for selling crafty things she'd made. One set of items I particularly remember are the sewn dolls she'd put together. It always amazed me how much personality she put into a few square inches of fabric. She gave up that business when we moved to Oregon to follow my father's practice and found a new outlet in painting and pastels. One of my most prized possessions that I've had for over a decade now is a pastel she did of my first cat, Scamp - somehow I can still feel him watching me through the still paper. One of her most recent projects have been "dream boxes"; paper-craft boxes containing words, miniatures, and pieces of anything that seems appropriate. Though many of the components are goodwill finds, she manages to personify the recipient's hopes and wishes through the minuscule imagery found within, often without ever meeting the person that the box is made for.

I shouldn't lead you to think that all is perfection in our relationship; we disagree on a number of things, and even fight from time to time. All that aside, the bottom line is that I couldn't ask for a better mom. She's helped me to get where I am today, not by telling me what I should do or doing things for me, but by showing me what kind of person I should try to be."

Remember that test I took for Biology lecture last week, the one I was so damn nervous about? Just got my first progress report from my teacher; it and a 9 question assignment are the only grades counting so far, even though I've gotten full credit for the TOTE assignment she mentions. Functionally this means I can't have missed more than one or two questions on the test; it was only 54 weighted questions, and with the TOTE I guess I'd land at 100% grade if the term ended right now. Needless to say, it's a nice boost to the day.

Uncut from PCC email -

	PCC Course Progress CRN-13758
From	")'>Leslie Chao
Date	Friday, January 30, 2009 2:41 pm
To	")'>Josh Byram

Dear Josh,

I want to congratulate you on your progress in Cell Biology for Health Occ CRN 13758.

Current Grade is A

This is my personal message to you. This is the only portion of this message that is not automated so please disregard any messages outside of paragraph. This grade includes only the lecture portion of your grade and it includes the first exam and the first assignment. TOTE points are not included and will not be included until the end of the quarter if you are 2% away from the next higher grade. Congratulations, you are earning a 98% in this class so far. Keep up the excellent work.

Sincerely,
Leslie Chao

PCC has many student services and resources available to help you succeed in your courses and education. You can get more information by visiting Panther Tracks at http://www.pcc.edu/resources/first-term/eo2_0_CollegeSuccess.html

Tomorrow I'll be giving an impromptu speech in my Speech class. According to the instruction, the impromptu speech is supposed to be more of a way of segueing from a random phrase or question to a prepared speech. We'll see how the segue part of the equation works out, but I thought it might be appropriate to share the rough version of that speech with you folks.

"xxx makes me think about marriage. Actually, pretty much anything makes me think about marriage right now, as I've just gotten engaged. The point is, I've been thinking a lot about what marriage means to me. I've been married once before, actually, a little over a decade ago, but I've come to realize that what marriage meant to me then isn't what it means to me now.

People get married for a variety of reasons; some get married for family, some get married for religion, some for legal reasons, some just do it because they're in love. The first time I got married, it could have been said to be a combination of the last two. I was in California in the Navy at the time, met a girl, fell madly in love, and had to ship out back to Japan a month later. Things happened quickly, and we ended up eloping just to get things done fast enough to matter. We spent half an hour in filling paperwork and saying 'I do' in black jeans and T-shirts. I headed back to Japan, and Jessie came over with the Navy's blessing a month later.

At the time, marriage represented a way for me to keep Jessie in my life, and to show her that I cared enough to do so. Our relationship was very intense, and I knew, without reservation, that this was what I wanted to do. There was no pressure from family, friends, or church - no one knew what was going on but us. I'd seen a lot of friends in boot camp get married to one another just for the benefits; for those that aren't aware, Uncle Sam doles out a lot more if you have a wife or husband - your tax dollars at work. That wasn't it either, although it did make some things easier, later. At the basic level, this was a way for her and I to become 'us', forever, no more and no less. As it turns out, due to a number of very tragic circumstances, forever lasted about three years - she passed away on January 24th, 2001, and a very big part of that 'us' died then too.

I've spent a lot of time working through that, both on my own, with the help of professionals, and with friends. Anyone who has lost someone will tell you that you never really get over the loss, but you can learn to cope with it to some extent. A couple of years after Jessie passed, I met someone new, Eden. In a matter of months she became one of my best friends, and we ended up sharing a lot of things - feelings, thoughts, wishes, or just whatever was on our mind at the time. A lot of what we talked about was Jessie; what she meant to me, what I did wrong, what I did right, what I'd do differently. Eden really helped me to rebuild my self image into a person I can stand to be, and even like sometimes.

Our relationship has matured in fits and spurts over the years; most of the time we haven't been sure ourselves where we fit on the relationship scale, although we've known that we've cared immensely for each other from the start. Out of the six or so years we've known each other, we've probably been a formal 'couple' for perhaps three of those years, and we've been pretty happy at that level.

Recently I've decided to go back to school, and to transfer to OIT in Klamath Falls in September, to get a degree in Medical Imaging and start a new career. I can honestly say that 90% of that decision is because of Eden, although I'm not making that choice just for her. What I mean is that she's helped me to find a dream again, a vision of what I want my life to be. That's why I've asked her to marry me, and why my definition of marriage is different now. Marriage doesn't just mean 'us' together, it doesn't just mean showing her how much I care. It means a future together, a merging of our families and a family of our own some day. Marriage is a way of declaring that the future has meaning, has hope, and that we can't wait to get there."

Update: Just finished giving the speech - turns out I was the first one up; no pressure there. I got an easy word to work with: school, which was easy to work into the introduction. It's amazing to me how much your perception of time warps when you're in front of a class. I originally clocked the speech above at 3.5 minutes when practicing it, not counting working in the word given, which seemed about right for a speech that was supposed to be 3 to 5 minutes. The instructor flashes how much time you have left each minute, which only increases my nervousness, and thus the speed of my speech. It seemed like I was going light speed, but I guess I really wasn't - I actually had to trim a little to fit everything in while I was up there. That means that you folks are the only ones to get the original, uncut version. Lucky you!

Update 2: Dr. Brennan graded uber-quick; turns out I got 100% on this speech, which is 2 for 2 in this class. Awesome comments too.

Eden has started a new blog specifically about us! There's not much there yet, but I'm sure there will be. Feel free to take a look.

http://joshandeden.blogspot.com/

Extra special notice!!! As of last night, I am officially engaged to Eden. We're not entirely sure of a date yet, but the wedding should happen sometime in the next few months.

Well, I've done it. Specifically, the application to attend OIT in the fall is in, and transcript transfer requests from PCC and PSU have been submitted to get them to accept me. I'll have to resend the PCC transcript again this fall to get the grades and courses for the prerequisites I'm working on now to move over, but that shouldn't be a big deal.

Talking to the representative from OIT at the PCC Transfer days event yesterday really didn't do much for me in terms of clearing things up as to how this is going to land, but it did give me a little information. Among other things, the rep made me aware of a presidential scholarship for transfer students for a few thousand a year. Right now I don't qualify for it, as it's targeted at students with a GPA above 3.3 (my PCC GPA is currently at 3.15, mostly due to a hiccup one term in 2003 that caused me to have to drop or fail almost all of my classes that term). Ideally I'll be in that range once my PSU grades and the grades for the next two or three terms at PCC are taken into account, and will be able to apply. There's also a "preview" day on Saturday, April 18th this year to get familiar with the campus and so forth - I'm not sure I'll attend, as it's a five hourish drive each way and I don't know if it'll be all that useful to me (my time with the rep here was perhaps 8 minutes to exhaust her relevant knowledge), but it's worth knowing about.

I also got my first grade back! The quiz in Algebra, that I forgot my darn calculator for, landed at 34/46, an A. Given that the teacher said the class pretty much bombed it, that feels pretty good. We'll see how it goes from here, but it feels like I'm getting back in the groove, mathwise. I'm going to enjoy it as much as I can now, because the next section will be Trigonometry, and that never actually made sense to me.

Other than the Transfer days event, yesterday was a relaxation day of sorts. Eden, Cassie, and I grabbed breakfast/lunch at Ikea (darn good prices for edible food), then got out of town and headed to Multnomah falls. There's been a lot of stress going on recently for all three of us, and it was good to unwind a little. Eden and I tend to head out there or to the coast every couple of months at least. We need to find some new destinations in range, but this has served us as an outlet for years now. It's just nice to be away from the city.

Well, my the final two classes of last week were a bit different. My Biology Lab focused on the 15 second discussion of the scientific method we had in class as part of the chapter one overview. We spent the three hour period going over safety (don't drink/eat in the lab, if you get anything in your eyes, wash em quick!), devising experiments to determine the contents of a "black box", and familiarizing ourselves with measuring equipment. I gotta admit I was a little disappointed; I don't really know what I was expecting for a first session, but I was hoping for things to be a bit more interesting. The fact that our next class will focus almost exclusively on how to use a microscope is not encouraging, but hopefully the sessions after that will prove interesting. My fellow students seemed a little impatient with the whole thing, and I guess I can't blame em.

The speech course on Saturday was also a bit outside the parameters I expected. The actual teacher was not present, so his "best friend" came by to monitor the class. Don't know why he was gone, don't know if his friend was an actual teacher, etc. etc. Functionally the class was: your syllabus is available online (I can't get to the section of PCC where it's located at the moment, I'll be addressing this later today in the lab at RC), I don't have a copy; this is your book, it's neat because the chapters are so short; find a partner and be ready to introduce them next time you come in. Not the most impressive presentation. I'm hoping that this just signifies that the instructor was caught flatfooted by something and had to pull last minute resources just to make sure that someone was actually there.

I had my first quiz in Algebra this morning; forgot my new(ish) TI at Eden's this morning, so there was a little scrambling there. Fortunately it was very much a "show your work" type of thing anyway, so that worked out, I think. I know I got the right answers, and I'm fairly confident that I illustrated how I got there sufficiently. The new subject for the day, finding interest, made immediate sense to me, so I'm in a pretty good mood about my direction in the subject. It's very odd, returning to it after really not having any significant math courses in a decade or so.

I checked in with financial aid advising yet again this morning, and while it looks like everything finally matches up between FAFSA, PCC, and US Bank, I'm going to have to talk to my parents tonight about a loan against my loan. The financial aid officer here at Cascade finally did me the courtesy of letting me know that it will probably take 4 to 6 weeks from this point to actually be disbursed, although she can't see any reason why it wouldn't be awarded. Since the due date for tuition is this Friday, that's a problem. She said that I wouldn't be disenrolled for non-payment for quite some time and that they have some leeway to waive the late fee for payment (once), I'd really rather just start out on the right foot. I did make sure that simply paying the tuition outright wouldn't prejudice my future status with FAFSA (it was filled out as non-dependent) and wouldn't affect getting the loan. Functionally what should happen is that I'll get tuition paid on time, then have the entire loan amount refunded to me since all fees/tuition have already been paid, which'll mean that I can then immediately pay the parents back. Fun, fun.

Other than the traffic, I'm kind of liking the morning portion of my schedule. It's kind of nice to have a built in break of sorts between the two classes at Cascade to just relax a bit, and maybe work ahead.

Well, after having had 2 days in class so far, I think this is going to be doable. It's readily apparent that there are going to be some difficulties involved, but they're within an acceptable range. My classes at Cascade campus land me on the road during both the morning and evening "rush hour". The morning is fairly well locked up all the way in; on Monday I don't think I topped 20 miles an hour. I tried sleeping over at Eden's to come in from Vancouver on Wednesday morning and that was a little better, but I think I'll need to make some adjustments there too - I actually ended up getting up after Suzanne had left but before anyone else was really up, which meant no shower but I got to school almost an hour before I needed to be there, which was actually kind of nice. Coming back to the west side isn't too horrible - the I5 is already locked up but I can use back streets to dodge that. Eden gave me a route from Interstate Avenue that I promptly forgot - still got home, but ended up going through central Portland rather than landing on the 30. I'll have to work on that. In any case, highway 26 was still moving by the time I hit it on both evenings. I end up with about enough time for a shower and a hurried meal before heading over to Rock Creek campus. I guess evening classes are pretty darn popular there, because it takes from 5:30 to about 5:55 to drive the 2-3 miles from my apartment to campus. Go figure. My remaining trips this week shouldn't be too bad, as they're both single class days at Rock Creek.

As to the actual classes, well, it's been educational . Algebra is kind of comforting, in that I seem to remember/understand most of it, although I could swear I've never seen the quadratic formula before. I can apply it, but it really feels like a brand new equation, which is a little disturbing, in that I remember solving these kind of problems before, just don't remember how. The other problems given during the teacher's little pretest sorted themselves out from memory nicely though. By the way, if you're ever in need of a quick graphing calculator and don't have one handy, check out the freeware app GraphCalc (http://www.graphcalc.com/). My TI got here today, so I'll be using that for homework later to remember how it actually works in preparation for the quiz on Monday.

Writing class has been very straightforward thus far, although it seems like there's comparatively little reading and writing going on in class - too much time doing things like relearning how to cite quotations properly. I'm sure that'll change some as time goes on. My Biology teacher is very interesting. The first class she seemed to be going light speed, but kept on saying that we'd come back to this concept or that concept in later classes, which makes sense since the first chapter is an overview, but still, it made taking notes very difficult. She did post the lecture online beforehand, but that's the only classroom thus far that doesn't have a working wireless router in range. The second class was much more comprehensible, in that I'd printed the lecture beforehand to write notes on and the subject matter made more sense. The chapter was on very basic chemistry, which was a little fascinating, as I have not taken any kind of chemistry before and the concepts seemed to fit together pretty well. The only stumble came up in a discrepancy between the book's description of the relation between valence shells and orbitals (subshells), which the teacher said was wrong. Wikipedia agrees with her, so I'm going with her explanation on the test.

After class I made a compromise with myself and went to study at the Circled by Hounds show over at Biddy's. I think I confounded the girls by having my head in a book (rereading the first two chapters of Biology) for most of the show, but it was worth it, because it was pretty relaxing and I got to hear their new member a bit. It's kind of interesting, in that I wouldn't have associated a flute with their music at all before, but he melded extremely well. If you haven't heard them before, do yourself a favor and at least click the link - they're great musicians with some incredible energy in person. (For perspective, their last two CDs are litterally the only music I've bought since high school - I'm the kind of guy that normally lets Pandora figure out a background for me when I feel like music)

Well, it'll be time to head to the Lab section of Biology (with a different teacher) here in a couple of hours, so it's time to move on to more productive things.