5 tests in just as many school days was pretty nasty. Add multiple-hour homework on-top of that, and attempting to have a life and you get yourself a dilemma. I survived the first battery. Astromechanics test was difficult. Pick 4 out of 5 work out problems to do in 50 minutes. So slightly more than 12 minutes a question. Keep in mind homework for this class took about 8 hours for just as many questions. I didn’t have enough time, so if it comes down to it and that grade is not a B or greater by the end of the semester, before the final, I’m withdrawing and becoming just a plain ol’ ocean engineer. That is, as long as work doesn’t have a problem with that. Tonight was my first night to really just relax, only having one thermodynamics homework assignment, which usually take less than an hour to do (I’ll do it in the morning).

It’s surprising that you can actually have some fun doing homework assignments. A group of us OE’s (and the occasional AE) get together in one of the conference rooms in the library to work on homework. As weird as it may sound, we actually have fun (for the most part) doing the boring/hard-as-hell engineering homework. And more importantly we help each other out. The library may as well just give us an office there, or the keys to the building. Two nights this week they actually had to kick us out after closing time.

Not too much of that has been happening. Saturday was a lot of fun (and not because of the game). Tomorrow (Friday) I’m playing tackle football for the first time in a while. Should be a lot of fun. Hopefully I won’t break anything. I also learned a song on piano. Meaning by Gavin DeGraw. I figured out the piano-only intro on it, I can play it at about 3/4 speed. And now it’s time to goto sleep so I can do my homework tomorrow morning.

Rock out…

Another year, another… year……. Believe it or not, I did not go to any parties on my 21st birthday. Now, don’t get me wrong, I tried… it just didn’t happen. Ron Forbes was awesome, he organized some stuff for me making this one of my best birthdays. Friday night (night before birthday) I went over to one of our friends appartments where a little shin-dig was thrown involving a keg or two. But that party ended promptly at midnight. And by promptly, I mean 11:55 PM, everyone was heading out the back door. Ambulances seem to break up parties pretty nicely, fyi. Saturday a group of us went to Macados (restaurant) and for one reason or another… I didn’t bring a camera… not sure why. But I did get carded for the first time and bought my first official alcoholic beverage (well, the people that went bought it for me, but you know what I mean). Long Island Iced Teas are outstanding by the way. Following that was a Corona (w/lime of course).

That night we tried going to two parties in Foxridge, but as we were walking up to each of them… the cops were too (to bust them). So I just quit while I was ahead and went home.

Zoom forward a week to Friday night and…

The lovely Thalia (pictured below w/me) invited me to go salsa dancing with her and her friends. It was quite a lot of fun. Before we left my five lovely female escorts taught me some salsa moves and then we went to Cinco de Mayo (which is downtown). It was there that I first learned first-hand that bar drinks are expensive. $4 a shot, $3 a beer.

thaliamartz
Originally uploaded by mmartz.

No Tortilla Chips Were Harmed in the Making of this Blog Post

I figured I should actually post something up here before my birthday… plus I haven’t updated in a while anyways. This last week has been quite insane. Last Saturday Ron and I did all the filming for our episode of Cribs. We edited Saturday/Sunday/Monday, and put it online Monday night. In the 4 days it has been up, it has been viewed by over 1000 people… yes… ONE THOUSAND PEOPLE. That’s pretty frickin cool. We just made it cause we liked our room, and we were goofin around. We also didn’t mean for it to be 11 minutes long (we were shooting for 5 minutes) but there wasn’t much we could cut out, though I’ll admit some sections were a little lengthy. If you still haven’t seen it, it’s at: http://cribs.mattmartz.com

Aside from the Cribs-video craziness, Engineering decided to start getting harder. Thermo, which at this same time last week was the easiest class I had ever taken, became one of the harder ones (though most of that is me and everyone else overcomplicating things). I’m also starting to like SGA (the anti-RHF, if you will) more and more. They do more with less. I’m going to see if I can contribute some of my web-skills to the website overhaul they’re doing, and I have some interesting ideas that could be implemented to help the organization.

Well… the year started off on a bad note. I’d rather forget what happened that night so I’m not even going to mention it… but because of it, there was a lot of stress for a lot of people, and it was an unfortunate coincidence that it happened on my birthday. Live and Learn. In December Marooneyfest continued with 2k4. My bud Jon Cooney up at Penn State in Erie came down and we drove home together for the winter break. (We did the same thing in 2003… and again in 2005 for Spring Break) So we’re covered through next year, though I doubt it will happen again since I have a car here now. Winter break I worked for Lockheed Martin again (Summer too) and that basically brings me up to now/this last week. People are here now… My next post will probably be as a 21 year old.