School Then and Now

I am back at school. The same community college that I was at before but with major differences. I am now living on my own and supporting myself. This adds serious weight to the decisions I make regarding school and how I spend my money. I have also spent several years working in the 'real world' away from the sheltered cove of the academic world.

I have come to the conclusion (as previously explained) that I need a 4-year degree, and I have chosen CIS as my major. I see everything differently now. I am not here to make friends. I am not exploring my options. I have a plan: get in, get out, get on with my life. I have built my schedule to be all on Tuesdays and Thursdays and to get me done in the shortest amount of time possible. The wandering and uncertainty is gone. I don't have time for all of that. I need to get this over with so that I can go on to a more concrete job with greater learning potential.

through this lens, everything looks different. I can quickly tell the difference between students who have a plan and those who don't know what to do with themselves. I can also see myself as I was and all the time I wasted. I can not afford to waste any more time. I am running out of pre-family time to get my things in order. If I am going to be the man my Novia deserves then I need to get this right. I am now in the mindset that grades lower than an A are not an option and that I need to plan out my class schedule far in advance. School is not some game or testing ground for life, it is a challenge to overcome and a rite of passage that I failed once but will not fail again.

Campus

Old Friends

Facebook is an interesting thing. It serves as a sort of portal into another person's life. It has become an absolutely crucial tool to keep in touch with some of my friends who live far away or travel in different circles, but tonight I see it in a different way.
Tonight I am looking at the facebook profile of a friend of mine for whom I acted as best man when he was married. I had stumbled onto his profile and then browsed his recent pictures. I was about to say that I can't remember the last time we hung out but I can because it happens so infrequently these days and it was more than 6 months ago. It makes me sad, but I understand why.
(here is the part of the post where I get more specific and the two guys to whom the above applies figure out which one of them I am posting about)
We have known each other since high school and were constantly at each other's houses for years but all that tapered off. I don't blame his wife who is the force that changed him and enabled most of the things that keep us from being closer but the truth is that he doesn't need me any more. He has his shit together now and sets and attains his goals like he never could before. She has made him into a more complete person. I have never gotten along that well with the wife but I recognize that she is good for him, and that they love each other very much. Now despite us living about 15 minutes from each other, we never meet up. We do different things, go different places, and have different goals.
I know that people change and that people have some friends for a couple of months, some for years and some for the rest of their lives. It is just strange to see the friends with whom our bonds have long since slackened still living out their lives in different ways so close and yet unseen except for through the crystal ball of facebook.
I know that you are going to call me bro (you were always better at that then I), and we should meet up and get caught up. maybe lunch...

Under new Advisment

I have spent a lot of time in the past few days trying to figure out how best to go about getting a Bachelors degree. There are many different things to study at more then a few different schools and many different considerations.

I am overwhelmed. I bailed out with a 2 year degree before and I kind of understand now how almost inevitable that was. I had no guide and lacked the force of personality to find my own way. Sure there are counselors and websites but they just sit there waiting for you to come to them and I didn't go. I am now ready to navigate that particular labyrinth and I am finding out just how fractured the process really is. I am getting ready to transfer and I haven't quite decided what school to go to. I am closest to transferring to a CSU so I am thinking of Cal State LA or Cal Poly Pomona. These schools are close and cheap. This means that I am using three different school websites to look up classes and majors. Of the three, Pasadena.edu is the most user friendly. I struggle through the differing terminology and layouts and find out that there is one website to apply to either CSU, it is CSUMentor.com. Then while trying desperately to find which classes count for what when transferred, I stumbled into Assist.org which brings my necessary websites up to a total of five.

In addition to the technological confusion, finding someone to talk to about classes is its own kind of torture. The admissions people only know about general education and transfer requirements. In order to get specifics you need to talk to the department head of the major you want to go into. I have to track down the office of the person in charge of the major and then if I am lucky I will have managed to go during their walk in advisement hours. If not, I need to make an appointment and talk to them about what? I don't even know what to ask any more. This experience has made me prefer the scattered information available on the internet.

I am slowly finding the criterion that I need  to judge my situation and make the best choice. I am trying to minimize the time and money that it takes to achieve a BS. It is like trying to make a coherent picture out of pieces from three puzzles. It is a confusing task and, to extend my earlier metaphor: when I get to the center of the labyrinth, will I even be able to slay the Minotaur there?

Mead batch 8 Move

Novia and I moved batch 8 to secondary fermentation today. I decided to add 5 more pounds of honey to the batch to allow it to reach full 18% alcohol potential. We also took this opportunity to taste the mead and judge its progress. It is delicious. The vanilla flavor comes through strongly and with the added sweetness it tastes like vanilla honey ice cream. I am excited for the possibility of this batch. It should mellow down to a smoother flavor in time.
It was measured at 1.022 Specific Gravity when we opened the bucket and then after mixing 5 pounds of honey the Specific Gravity was 1.060. This should allow the mead to ferment up to its full 18% Alcohol by volume and end at around 1.01 and 1.00 Specific Gravity.

Want or need?

I am back in school. I am one class away from transferring to a CSU as a junior and now I have to pick a major. This is a harder choice than I originally thought. The problem is not that I don't know what interests me, the problem is that I don't think I can go for an interesting major because I will not be able to take the classes and work. I will have to take a more generic major with easier to schedule classes so that I can get a four year degree sooner and get on with my life. Is it good enough though?

I wonder if I have the luxury of asking that question. I am in a bad financial situation ( but so is the country in general) and I need to get back up on my feet. I started looking into getting a four year degree because it would enable me to get a job and pay my bills. I am now tantalized by an interesting major in industrial technology that has more requirements and less class time options. I have to decide soon. The deadline to apply is the end of the month and I will not let myself miss it. I don't think that I have the option of 2-3 years of near full time student work that it would take to get the Industrial Technology degree, when I could probably get a Business Administration degree part time in two years.

Worry worry

Alcohol Potential

I have been looking further into Alcohol By Volume and Specific Gravity, and I am a little concerned about my 8th batch of mead. The Original Gravity is 1.1 which according to my hydrometer allows for a alcohol potential of 13.2%. The yeast we selected has a alcohol tolerance of 18%. This means that this batch will wind up being completely dry with about a 13.2% alcohol by volume.

I am a little concerned because batch 7 was a fairly dry mead and this time I intended on making a medium sweet mead. Now I have to decide if I want to add more honey when I transfer the must to secondary fermentation to allow it to ferment to its full alcohol tolerance and have sugar left over for sweetness. I can also let it ferment to the available sugar and then add more honey after filtering the finished mead down to 1/2 micron sterile filtration. It depends on how much sweetness and how much alcohol I want in the finished batch. 

Friends: feel free to chime in here and let me know what you think. The comments are enabled on this blog so I can get your opinions on things so let me know.