flight
I want to fly really bad. This desire strikes me every once in a while, and it takes me over. I MUST learn to fly. It's been my overriding dream since I was a little kid. The first thing I ever wanted to be when I was little was a train operator. Don't ask me why, but it was. Once I realized that was kind of lame, I've wanted to be a pilot. I still want to be a pilot. Unfortunately because of my eyes I'll never do more than private flying, but that's good enough for me. I think now may be the time I will be able to realize my dream. I've said this to myself many times before, but I think I can do it. I have a little bit of extra money, and by the beginning of next semester I should have enough to begin. It's hard and expensive, takes more than a year to do, but is totally worth. I just can't imagine flying at dusk over the Golden Gate, all the world beneath me. What a rush. I'm so lucky I live in a time I can do something like flying. Just a hundred years ago it would have completely ridiculous.
posted by Alex Densmore at 7:52 PM

freak out
My ME104 homework is driving me crazy! I'm way more frustrated doing my homework than just not doing it at all. Such a terrible, terrible attitude. I must learn, that is my whole purpose in life at the moment. If I'm not learning, then what the heck am I doing wasting my parent's money at school? But sometimes I just feel so lazy......

Bush is driving me crazy too
Military tribunals? Is the guy freakin' nuts? Courts are the very basis of our civilization. We're fighting a war to defend 'freedom', and then we're stripping freedom away. Freedom for us, not for you. You don't deserve freedom we say. Everyone deserves freedom. Military tribunals are not justice. Justice is a fair trial performed for all the world to see. We display our power far more effectively trying criminals in a public court than by dropping thousands of tons of bombs on some rocks.
posted by Alex Densmore at 7:44 PM

Giving Thanks
It's that time of the year again, so I thought I'd just jot down a few things I'm thankful for. It helps me to clarify all the wonderful things in my life, and not take anything for granted. I think the same as always I'm most thankful for my parents. Without their help I wouldn't be able to all that I can do today. My parents are always there to support me in my trials and projects. They've helped me make the best of college, and encouraged me in my dreams. I'm thankful for all the cool friends I have, for all the times I can sit down with people and talk out the things that bug me in life, the things that excite me and the things that just make me down right confused (women!). I'm thankful for all the opportunities I have in life, especially to travel. I'm thankful that there's a band like U2 that can make such freakin' good music and put on one heck of a rock show. I'm thankful I'm loved by a God who loves me for who I am and doesn't punish me for who I'm not. I'm thankful that I will get to know Him better the longer I live my life.

SF again
I'm going to see Alcatraz today, right after class. I've wanted to see it for a long time, and now I get to go with my mom and my brother. It reminds me of 'So I Married an Axe Murderer' (which I saw for like the 10th time on Sat). Phil Hartman plays a great role as a tour guide. If you haven't seen it, go and rent it! It's one of my all time favorite movies.
posted by Alex Densmore at 10:14 AM

Time for a shower
I went up with Joan to the Berkeley Hills tonight to see the Leonid Meteor shower. It was beautiful, so many wonderful streaks in the sky. We met some really cool English people too that gave us a ride. They had some cider and sandwiches to share, which was wonderful because it was very cold outside and I was hungry. A great time for bonding, conversation and just a little inner reflection.
posted by Alex Densmore at 4:14 AM

It's a mad, mad world
The past two days have been a whirlwind of excitment, apprehension and ecstacy. The story starts with the Student Professor Dinner Wednesday night. It went off very well, better than I had anticipated. There were enough people, professor Pello's talk was very interesting, and dinner was very tasty. I can't say what a relief that was. My work with ASME is basically done for the semester, and I focus back on my school work.

Enter: Debbie Evans. Always a catalyst of craziness in my life, our adventures these past two days proved no different. Wednesday night we sat up watching U2 videos on my computer, obsessing over anything and everything U2. I was really glad my roommates and a few of my friends got to meet her, because who she is is a lot of what I am. We don't get to see each other very often (being that she goes to UCSD), but when we do see each other it's in large, concentrated doses. This time was actually one of the smaller doses, just 2 and a half days. Thursday we went to San Francisco and did the touristy bit. We rode the cable car, went to Ghiradelli Square and visited the Exploratorium. I've lived here for over two years and I've never visited some of this stuff. It all just reminded me how much I love SF. Such great character.

EL-E-VA-TION! Friday = U2. We got to the Colisseum around 11:45, but didn't arrive at the arena until after noon. Now the security people handled this situation badly. Some people arrived by car and some by BART. The car people started a hand numbering system to figure out who arrived when. The problem was this didn't account for the people who came by BART and had to wait seperately. When access was allowed to the area next to the arena, many people got in line first who didn't have numbers, including Debbie and I. Anyways, to make a long story short people got nasty about where they were supposed to be in line, and I was very saddened by the whole scene. The crowd in Anaheim was much friendlier, and I was astounded by how quickly one could become friends with complete strangers. But onto the show. Absolutely AWESOME. This was even better than the Anaheim show, which I thought might be an impossible task. The set list was beautiful, and we had a great view from inside the heart. I don't think there are any performers on earth that can match the skill of U2. Just incredible.

But now I've got the post concert let down, and I'm running low on energy. The final stretch for the semester is still ahead of me, and my great excitement is over. Man I can't wait for Thanksgiving.
posted by Alex Densmore at 1:09 AM

Relief.... kinda
This last week has been bso stressful, with midterms and the Student Professor Dinner tonight. With that done, it will be easy sailing to midterms. And that means tomorrow I'm going to the city to hang out and do the whole tourist bit. I've lived here for over two years and there's still a lot of San Francisco I haven't seen, which is a shame because I love this city (we built this city, we built this city on rock and roll.....). And then of course, there's Friday night. I get to see U2 yet again! This will be the third time on this tour alone. They are such amazing performers in addition to their incredible music. Some groups I've seen in the past (Smashing Pumpkins, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant) are really really good studio performers, but just can't reproduce their energy live. U2 is way more alive on stage performing than on a record. They give everything they have at every show.
posted by Alex Densmore at 9:44 AM

Living in a Movie
The other day I got my 256 megs of flash memory for my i-Paq. It's so cool to walk around campus with 60 mp3's. Tonight I was walking to Etcheverry and then further to downtown. It was really strange, because I have these giant headphones that block out all other noises. So I had these songs playing as I was walking, and I couldn't hear anything else. Everything I saw seemed to be in a movie, and my music was the soundtrack. I was just an observer, watching things happen. The feeling was exceptionally strong when I was on the bus. I saw ordinary people talking and laughing, yet couldn't hear a thing out of them. I started to get those kind of profound emotions you get when you watch a movie. It was pretty cool, but it increased my sense of isolation. It was almost like I couldn't be seen. It was a really interesting experience, but I don't think I'd want to feel that way all the time.

Next Wednesday is THE day! So much stress is relieved. The Student Professor Dinner is done, and Debbie's coming up to visit! Then Friday we all (me, James, Debbie, Joan and Christaline) go see U2! This will be my third time on the Elevation Tour, and 4th over all. I just can't get enough of seeing these guys. They are so, so talented and their music is unbelievable.
posted by Alex Densmore at 9:27 PM

Reality Check
I'm coming to realize what people meant when they said Berkeley is a 'theory based research university'. It means that for the most part it's hands off. It means that the majority of classes are devoted to a deep understanding of underlying princples and not to applications. For me that means my classes are filled with math, math and more math. Now I have nothing against math, it's just that I can't do it very well. I can appreciate it's beauty and symmetry, how most anything in the universe can be explained through the manipulation of symbols. But when it comes to integrating a Jacobian over a three dimensional surface or calculating Eigen vectors, I come up a little short. And that's the problem. I joined the school of engineering because I wanted to build and create, to have a sense of physical accomplishment. I get none of that with the classes I've taken at Berkeley, and it's looking very much like that's the way it will remain. And that's what's got me bummed. I don't know what the world after Berkeley will be like. Will it be like it is now, mostly math and theory? Or will I get to do more hands on stuff. If it's the former, then I don't know what I'll do with my education, because I don't think I could stand a job where all I did was manipulate equations and crunch numbers. Bah, who knows. Maybe all this rambling is just an attempt to avoid the fact that I have two midterms this week and I'm trying to rationalize away that terrible feeling of failure in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe it's the fact that it's 1:30 and I'm dead tired.
posted by Alex Densmore at 1:34 AM

More of the same
Seems like my life at the moment is being dominated by the same hold stuff - school and ASME. I'm either doing homework, doing stuff for ASME or wasting my time at work (which I'm doing at the moment). Oh I yearn for a day when I am free of these stresses and my life will be as free as can be. But until then there's much work to be done, and it won't do itself. I just need to find the will to have it done in a proper manner.
posted by Alex Densmore at 4:36 PM

Old Acquaintance
I ran into someone I knew from high school today. He's a junior transfer, so he's only been here two months. It was kind of embarrasing, I forgot his name but he remembered mine. We knew some of the same people in high school, so we chatted for a while. It reminded me just how little of those people I see these days. Two or three at the most when I go home. I hope I'm a lot better at keeping in touch with friends after college.
posted by Alex Densmore at 7:23 PM