What the heck is a blog?

Yep, it's official ladies and gents, Michael Hale has joined the wonderful addition to our society's means of communication to potentially numberless audiences around the globe...or a fancy description of a blog. Yes, I am aware that I answered my own question, but thanks for checking on me.

So I was coaxed into creating one of these things by a good friend and I'm still not really sure why. But I guess more for my sake than anyone else's, I can publish the intricacies of my daily life for convenient future review or memory recall should such recall be needed at some point. And if by some miracle a person or two should happen onto this small space of "me" maybe there's a chance they can glean some advice or pseudo-wisdom from this neatly organized collection of html scripts. Who knows?

So I started school this past Monday at Arizona State University and had what could very well have been the two worst days of my life. Don't ask me to regurgitate previous reasoning as to why I chose to major in Mechanical Engineering because, believe me, I've tried to conjure up that same reasoning myself and have yet to enjoy any such luck. To give a little background on what exactly contributed to my bout with insanity, I will list the classes in which I am currently enrolled: Calculus 3, Modern Differential Equations, Physics 2, Statics and Dynamics, and Engineering Design. Added to my list of personal blunders and under-achievements (don't worry I don't actually keep a written record of this list) I elected to take Calculus 1, Calculus 2, and Physics 1 before my mission. Who knows why it didn't occur to me that Calculus 3, Physics 2, and Differential Equations would all be dependent upon my performance in those exact courses. Well, had I thought it through more thoroughly (wow that's a lot of -ough combinations!) I would have taken those classes in sequence as they are meant to be taken...but hindsight is always 20-20 right? So my lot in life for this semester is to work my tail off re-learning calculus and somehow manage to take calculus at the same time. Trust me, when it's all over you'll think I'm amazing too!

However, I was--despite how terribly bad this all sounds--able to find a little respite from the chaos and enjoy a small twinge of sick humor as I sat in my differential equations class on Tuesday. As I was sitting there watching the teacher write unethically fast, I couldn't help but make a few notes about what was actually taking place in that classroom. Clearly this man was speaking a language I didn't understand. I later came to the conclusion that he was speaking either Mandarin or Hindi...or some ridiculous mixture of the two. The reason I came to that conclusion is because the 3 Chinese kids and the 2 Indian kids in the class seemed to precisely understand every single word that came out of his mouth. Now how the crap is that fair?!? You can't just go around teaching an upper-level math class in Mandarin because the only people that are going to benefit are the Chinese! No wonder all of America's jobs are getting outsourced over seas...they're not teaching the classes in English!! Once I figured it all out I was able to, as I mentioned earlier, glean a little humor from the situation and take it all with a big smile. I think I can learn the language, it's going to take some work though. I'll keep you posted.

As for my sanity, somehow it was maintained as I made it through the week relatively unscathed. Unfortunately I'm not given an option as to whether or not I want to push my luck and go for a second week...I have to do it anyway. So let's just hope luck is on my side this time shall we? I'm game.