Meals
- Breakfast – Hash Brown Sandwich / Orange Juice
- Lunch – Lasagna with fries and a salad (plain lettuce) / Lipton Mango Ice Tea
- Dinner – Pesto Pasta and a side of Strawberries / Lipton Peace Ice Tea
Weather
- Sun. Lots of sun and clear skies.
The Happenings
I woke up today at 7:00am with my alarm but went back to sleep for another hour. I had a dream about summer school ending (not that I don’t enjoy Scotland or anything…) I left the dorm at around 8:50 and plugged in my headphones and started my stroll to QMU to get breakfast. I tried the hash brown sandwich this time and it wasn’t terrible but I don’t know if I’d get it again. I think I prefer my hash browns by themselves. I also got a bacon and cheese sandwich and it was a bit greasy as usual so I might switch to the sausage sandwich tomorrow.
Our morning session today was interesting. We switched mentors for this cycle so now we have Ruben instead of Sophie. We also had to take another quiz after doing the reading quiz last night, which I guess gives us more practice but doesn’t really help us learn or clear up our conceptual gaps. After the quiz, a lot of people in my group were confused, such as to why the force of friction is greatest right before a wheel starts to skid.
Then we went to our morning lecture and Professor Yao cleared up some concepts about tension and friction for us. Apparently a rolling circle exhibits static friction instead of kinetic friction because the circle’s point of contact with the surface does not move parallel to it. Professor Yao also drew a really cool horse for an example problem and a few of us think he only chose that problem so he could flex on us and draw the horse. It looked like some of those Asian styled horse drawings. Needless to say, it was cool.
Our pm session was a bit better. We did consolidation questions and my group struggled a bit through them but we finished before 4pm! But alas, we had to meet up with our other engineers to do more practice problems and the second question wrecked me a bit. We had to take the integral of acceleration to find the answer of how far a puck moved on a frictionless lake and wow. . . I really haven’t integrated in a while and it shows.
On the way back to our dorms, we stopped by Tesco and I bought a box of ice cream drumsticks. I was really craving some ice cream and I had a tough day so I thought why not? The box had six cones and it was all gone before we reached our rooms. Don’t worry, I shared with my friends. It would be crazy to eat six ice cream cones in 15 minutes.
After relaxing for half an hour or so, I decided to start the grind and do the tutorial questions for tomorrow. Question 1 and 2 kicked butt. Like actually. We had to draw free body diagrams for some complex systems (for only having learned it today). It was pretty draining. Meanwhile, I also did laundry and starting my clothes in the washer took 30 minutes. The two washers in my building were being used so I had to go to the front lobby. Our UCEAP counselor said that the laundry machines use coins still so I had a pocket full of coins, ready to pay. Well, I loaded my clothes into the washer and checked for the coin slot but THERE WASN’T ANY! I looked at the wall and it said I had to use an app and I left my phone charging in my room. So I treked back up to my room to grab my phone – and my wallet – and downloaded the app to pay for my laundry. Too much back and worth walking today for what could have been a simple task. Adulting is hard.
From about 9pm to midnight, I worked with Anabella, Robert, Raya, and Justin on the SIX tutorial questions. Ya we talked a bit sometimes and took some food breaks in between but it was a draining experience. Considering we only read the chapters on Newton’s Laws yesterday, I would say we’re doing pretty good. We were challenged with tension and forces in circular motion and ugh, it was a lot of mental processing and conceptualizing. I’m glad it’s over but I’m a bit skeptical about the final. The professor said it would be 20 multiple choice questions and three free responses, of which we pick two. But hey, he said 70% is an A so there’s some cushion.
I’ll still study and try my best but there is a lot of content and it is hard. I just hope the lab goes well tomorrow and isn’t too confusing. Check in tomorrow to see how that turned out! I am tired and exhausted and ready to sleep. Goodnight!
