2011 in Review

In January, I published this post on my blag detailing my hopes and goals for the year 2011.  I'm glad to report that I had a much better 2011 than 2010.  Pretty much every goal or hope that I listed in that post manifested itself.  I didn't find an internship despite the supposed prevalence of geotechnical lab work, but I think I'll make it, somehow.  I also only saw 4 football games in person, but again, I think I'll live.  My 2011 included:

• Receiving funding and enrolling in a master of science program at Oregon State.
• Beginning coursework toward that master's degree.
• Moving to Corvallis, Oregon and living 1,300 miles away from my parents. (Honestly, it's kind of tragic even being back for the holiday break.)
• Acquiring a 2011 Mitsubishi Lancer with 000002 miles on it.
• Turning 23.  This has pretty much been my favorite age so far.
• Being the 1% for Halloween.
• Seeing 4 college football games in person.  
• Seeing BYU play and win in Corvallis.
• Getting a new cell phone.  The old one crapped out maybe a month after that post and my parents got me a new one.  A dumbphone, of course.

With a new year comes new hopes and goals.  Unlike last year, I have a good idea of what my future holds.  I'll be continuing coursework and starting research toward my master's degree.  For 2012, I want to make significant strides in my research, not spend more than two weeks at a time in my parents' house, and see more football games.  In addition to the Oregon State games for the coming year, I'm thinking about heading to Provo for the BYU season opener against Wazzu and/or making a road trip to Boise to see the Cougars take on the Broncos on the Smurf Turf.  I'm thinking that the Mayans just ran out of room on their calendar; 2012 is going to be a good year.

Grad School Lessons, Take 1

In addition to teaching me about important technical skills like geotechnical lab work, foundation engineering, and structural seismic design, my first term of grad school has taught me some important life lessons.  Here's a quick summary of each, in no particular order:

• Check out the neighborhood before moving in.  Seriously, if 3/4 of your prospective neighbors speak little or no English, it might be worth it to pay twice as much to live twice as far away from campus.  Here's hoping that my car is still there when I come back from winter break.
• Don't trust other people to do your work.  In two of my classes this term, the homework was assigned as group assignments.  Suffice it to say, I found out why I always did my homework by myself during my undergrad years.  My grades in the two group classes were significantly lower than the one that had individual assignments.  It would have involved a lot more work to do the homework myself, but I think I would have been more satisfied with the results at the end of the term.
• Sometimes you're the dog and sometimes you're the hydrant.  In the seismic design final, I was the hydrant.  Dr. Miller feels that he wants his seismic design classes to learn the codes that govern design of structures.  This would all be well and good if he actually showed his seismic design classes how to use the code.  He told us what was coming, but we were still woefully unprepared because there was little teaching of the code and no assignments based thereon.
• Most people love alcohol more than life itself.  In grad school, most everyone is over 21 and is fully capable of consuming alcohol at any given social event.  Most everyone also exercises this right to the degree that they're pushing the limit of being too impaired to drive, but generally chooses to drive anyway.  I'm seriously thinking about upping the insurance on my car... assuming it's still there at the end of the break.
• People drive like they're impaired even with no help from alcohol.  Everyone in Corvallis drives 20 mph regardless of what the speed limit is.  I don't think the cops even bother setting up speed traps, it's not like they'd be good for anything.  The best one I've seen is a guy who changed his mind as to whether he wanted to turn at a particular intersection about 3 or 4 times and made a swerving half-lane-change for each one right in front of me.  In all fairness, it was right by fraternity row, which leads me to believe he was, indeed, impaired by alcohol.
• It can always get stupider.  I thought BYU CE's undergrad stupid seminar was stupid, then I became acquainted with Oregon State CE's graduate stupid seminar.
• Be grateful for what you have.  BYU's football team had at least a 10-win season every year that I was a student there, and stands a good chance of doing it again this year.  I got used to going to a school with a winning football team and it's kind of tragic that my current school's football team is arguably the worst in its conference. 
• My grades are always lower fall term/semester.  Speaking of football, when several hours of your Saturday are taken up by awesome football action both live and on the TV, it's hard to get any work done.  Winter and spring terms should be easier on my GPA.  Though, next fall I'm going to really need to focus and get it done.

Well, that's pretty much all I've got for now.  I've listed this as 'Take 1' because I assume that I'll have other lessons that I'll learn as grad school progresses. In the mean time, I think this should be sufficient.

Ten Virtuous Ladies

In Sunday School this last weekend, the instructor focused mostly on the first thirteen verses of Matthew 25, more commonly known as the parable of the ten virgins.  If you're not familiar with the story, it goes a little something like this.  There were ten women betrothed to marry a man, and it was their wedding day.  As a side note, polygamy was socially accepted at Jesus' time, but few men could afford it.  I guess women have always been expensive... but I digress.  Five of these women brought their little clay lamps and brought extra fuel oil with them.  The other five didn't bring extra oil and had to go out and buy more. By the time these five got back, the wedding had already started and they had been locked out.

 

This parable is analogous to how well prepared the righteous are to receive Christ at his coming.  All of the women were suitable in the eyes of the man.  Would you really marry someone who you didn't like, even if could have more than one spouse?  So, all of these women were a part of God's kingdom on Earth.  Some just slacked off and weren't prepared when the time came.

Now, this parable is pretty cool, in and of itself, but I wouldn't post this if I didn't think I had something good to add to it.  As a geotechnical engineer, I'm more expert than your average person in just about all things dirt related.  Inasmuch as the lamps that these ladies had were made out of clay, I feel like I can offer some insights.

Individual particles of clay are long and thin and don't necessarily fit together into a uniform structure all that well.  When clay particles are deposited, they don't all lay flat.  Some of them end up standing up on end to a certain degree and creating relatively large voids in the soil structure.  This is called flocculation.  Because of the electrical nature of clays, the presence of salt ions increases the effect, making the soil more flocculated. In addition, clay particles often like to stick together in clumps called "packets" which, again, aren't necessarily uniform and create somewhat larger pores in the clay structure.

A uniform clay structure at the top with a flocculated clay structure in the middle. The bottom picture is a more macroscopic view of clay structure, giving more insight into its porous nature.

In somewhat recent geological history, the holy land and much of the middle east was covered by an ocean.  This is where the limestone that was used to construct the Pyramids of Giza came from.  Thus, many of the clay deposits in the holy land were deposited by oceans.  This gives these clay deposits high salt ion content and a relatively high degree of flocculation.

What it all comes down to is that the clay in Israel is highly porous.  The highly flocculated structure makes pores in the clay through which a fluid like water or oil can flow.  Even though the clay was kind of fired, it still retains these properties, for the most part.

Getting back to the parable of the ten virgins, the five women who didn't bring oil thought that they could make it through the time they had to wait with just the oil they had.  The Bible doesn't mention it specifically, but I think it's quite possible that they thought they could just put out their lamps and wait until they needed them again.  Because of the porous nature of clay in general, and especially the clay in Israel, the oil in their lamps leaked out and they did not have enough when they needed it.  In short, that's not how it works; these ladies still had to pay the piper for their lack of preparedness.

The moral of the story for our lives is that we need to carry extra oil with us, because we could run out unexpectedly.  If we are to be prepared for the Savior when He comes, we must keep more testimony of the gospel with us than we think we need. If you don't have enough with you, you may run out unexpectedly and not have enough time to go find some.  No one knows when He'll come specifically, so really, it's best to have plenty on you at all times.

The Obligatory Google Search Results Post

What brings people who don't know me to this blag?  Well, Google has given me some insights via my Blogger Stats page.  Here are all the search terms that people have typed into Google to end up at this page, whether they meant to, or not.  The search terms will be in all lower case, since that's how Google does things.  Enjoy.

• kathy buck.  Undoubtedly from this post where I thought I had a snowball's chance in heck of getting a job with Bechtel.
• tangled black short hair movie disney.  It took me a while to find a picture of Rapunzel from the movie Tangled after Rider had cut off her hair, so I'm glad some other people could find it here.
• a series of unfortunate dudefests.  Yes!  Someone's looking specifically for my blag.  :)
• "appropriate touching" lds. Not exactly sure which post that would have led to; probably one of the ones on Gary Chapman's love languages and physical touch.
• andra pathakis staley. Someone scouring the internet for Andra.  May have even been Andra herself.  Ring check!
• byu football pictures dennis pita.  And yes, they did actually misspell it "pita."  Dennis PITTA.
• cu boulder 4.0 grading scale.  I'm sad to say that all my posts on grad school probably didn't help anyone who typed this into Google.
• fall walls of jericho.  I'd like to think that this post is making its way around the internet.
• foghorn leghorn "flying".  Undoubtedly from my comparison of Foghorn Leghorn to Swoop in this post.
• lds young women.
• most interesting man in the world cunnilingus.  The query for the most interesting man in the world came from this post... but I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned cunnilingus in this blag... until now.
• a reenactment of a famous collaboration, starring eller.  I'm pretty sure this one wins the award for most random and ridiculous.  I have no idea what this means, and I'm okay with that.
• doyon limited.  Back when I thought Doyon might actually be hiring construction engineers.
• female working out.  Sorry guys, no softcore porn here.
• walls of jericho cross section
• walls of jericho resonance.

Well that was fun.  I now look forward to even more hits from these search terms as a result of mentioning them in the text of this blag.

Jerk Theory and the Law of Chastity

After my last post about 9 hours ago, I received a comment from one Colonel Crimson, who, I'm about 99% confident, is a SpUte fan (but hey, we all have our faults.)  After reading through a few posts on the Colonel's blag, there are two things that I want to say.

The first is that the tenants of 'Jerk Theory' or 'The Game' are at least half true.  Jerk theory basically states that women prefer men who treat them like crap; women will deny this left and right, but they often end up with guys who treat them like crap, regardless of how much they say they want a guy who's funny, nice, and smart.  In the words of the Colonel, women will follow after "alpha (α) males" (douchebags, essentially) while ignoring the "beta (β) males" who are less aggressive.  On the contrary, women will tell you that they want a guy who treats them well and respects them.  These two ideas are contradictory and neither seem to reflect the total reality.

Because of the evolution of the human race, there are compromises between aggression and docility (for lack of a better word) among males.  In primal human males, the trait of aggression was perpetuated not only because more aggressive men were more likely to pursue women with whom to reproduce, but also because aggressive men were more likely to be able to protect their offspring from outside threats and keep them alive to reproduce and pass on those genes.  However, aggression is not a universally beneficial concept in the realm of evolution.  A male who is too aggressive will be prone to killing his mate and/or their offspring and will not be able to pass down his genes.  Thus, there is a balance to strike between the aggressive and the docile characteristics of males.

Primal females had to strike that balance, and try to find a man who was aggressive enough to protect their offspring, but not so aggressive as to kill and eat them.  We can observe similar behavior in modern women.  The traits of aggression and docility are manifest as confidence and niceness (again for lack of a better word) respectively in men.  These ideas are not inherently mutually exclusive, even though one tends to take away from the other in the observed populace.   The best responses I've received from women have been at times when I was both confident and respectful.  From what I've been able to gather from my time on the Earth, women want a man who has both swagger and a deep respect for the woman who he's with.

Unfortunately, the traits of confidence and aggression often end being correlated with self motivation, greed, and straight-up douchebaggery.  Due to the nature of our evolution, the slightly more aggressive ends up edging out the slightly more docile and the aggressive man who treats women like crap ends up with more women than the docile man who tries to remember what his mom told him about being nice to women.  Thus, jerk theory is born even though a balance between confidence and respect would be more ideal.

I have to add as a slight disclaimer to this logic, that, in my adult life, I've generally pursued women who were fairly nice and docile themselves.  I'm not the kind of guy who goes after the b*tchy, slutty my-size Barbie doll.  If that's the woman you're after, then treating her like crap might just be the way to go.  And also, as if you couldn't tell from my last post, I'm not exactly the mack daddy of Heimlich County; these are just analytical observations I've made of other relationships as well as of my own along with a parallel to principles of biology to reconcile both jerk theory and what women do to reality.

Secondly, I'd like to bear my witness of the law of the chastity.  I was a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I've experience firsthand that sexual contact is not the way to long term happiness.  In the end, the only way to avoid the heartbreak and sadness that eventually come from illicit sexual activity is to abstain from it altogether.  I've felt empty and worthless as a direct result of the things that I've done, and it was only through the atonement of Christ that I was able to feel whole.  I have a testimony that marriage in the temple is ordained by God and I have set it as a goal for myself to make that covenant, despite all the stacked odds against me.

And to Colonel Crimson, if you end up reading this, I want you to know that I respect you, I really do.  You refuse to accept the bullsh*t that women dish out about just wanting a guy who's "nice and funny."  You've taken a step back, examined the facts as they really are, and realized that what we hear isn't usually what we see.  Naturally, I think your conclusions are slightly misguided, but I respect you for making them nonetheless.  Stay classy, my friend.

This Post is Gonna Get Like a Billion Pageviews

People who have just met me are often surprised to find out that I'm about 97% confident that I won't get married during this lifetime.  I think I usually come off fairly typical and maybe even desirable (though that's pushing it) when you first meet me and it takes a while to realize that I'm actually a stark raving lunatic.  This is probably why I've been engaged... twice... and neither of them has worked out.  Both fiancées #1 and #2 realized somewhere along the line that I'm actually a terrible idea.

The particular event that inspired this post was a bishop's fireside that, naturally, focused on finding a spouse.  Most of the people in my ward don't know me that well and were/might be surprised that I hurried off afterward to go cry myself to sleep.  I this might offer a little clarity for those who REALLY want to know.

As with my other posts about women, if you're easily offended or disturbed, please take the opportunity to look away now.  I'd also re-examine what you're doing surfing the internet, but that might just be me.

Let's examine the evidence of why I probably won't end up married anytime soon:

• My mother didn't love me enough.  More strictly, she didn't love me in a way that I (or sane people) could feel loved.  It's a terrible cliché, I know, but without the unconditional love of a mother or any other female figure in my life (which there was none) I have a hard time believing that a woman might love me, personally, for who I am. 
• My mother tragically skewed my view of women.  There's no two ways around it, my mother hates men, and it shows in the way she treats my father.  In her eyes, the only men who are worthy to live are the ones with big, fat wallets, and 12-or-more-inch long penises.  Since my mother is the only woman I really knew growing up, I somehow gained the impression that women didn't really like men, but tolerated them for the hard labor and spermatozoa.  In a cruel twist of irony, this song was made by Good Charlotte... any guesses at what my mom's name is?
• I didn't exactly grow up with the best example of a healthy and stable marriage.  My parents tell me they love each other, but it's really hard to tell by looking at them.  Their time together was usually dominated by my mom criticizing my dad and throwing crap at him while my dad swore profusely. The times they told me they loved each other were outnumbered at least 10 to 1 by the times they told me how big of a prick/b*tch the other one was.  When this is your mental picture of marriage, it's not exactly something you run out to sign up for.
• Contemporary western society doesn't exactly embrace men.  Why are men from all over living in their parents' basements playing video games all day?  It's because there's really no place in our society for those with a Y chromosome.  In courtship, men don't really have much to offer women these days, while women still expect men to significantly improve their lives.  Simply put, women still expect just as much from men as they ever did, but men have much less ground to stand on.  Additionally, society continuously deprecates men, but still expects them to have plenty of confidence and no insecurities.  At no time is this more apparent than when you ask men to approach women in courtship.
• I'm not exactly what you'd call a typical Latter-day Saint male.  There are two common simple, objective metrics by which a young woman can evaluate her future spouse: RM status and the relationship he has with his mother.  I'm not eligible to go on a mission, and as you can image from the reading above, my relationship with my mother is strained.  In baseball, I'd have one more strike, but with many women, I don't.  Women have a lot of other things they're looking for in a spouse that might eliminate me from consideration, but these are the two most damning ones.
• Nature and nurture.  In addition to my mom skewing my views of women, I was born with a chemical predisposition to not be very aggressive.  This was combined with the fact that I was an only child and spent much of my time without the company of other people my age, making me not terribly outgoing, or excited to socialize with other people.

Boom goes the dynamite.

I hope that gives you a good idea of why I'm so pessimistic about my prospects for marriage.  In my mind these all fit together fairly easily, but I'm not sure that I totally managed to communicate what's going on in my brain.  I think you get a pretty good idea, though.

Updatetastic

I'm about a month into grad school at THE Oregon State University, which means that I'm about a third of the way through my first quarter.  It's been pretty great so far.  My three classes in Lab Testing of Soils, Foundations, and Seismic Design have been enjoyable and I've been doing well in all three of them.  The thing that I like best about my classes so far is definitely the sparsity of assignments.  In both Lab Testing and Seismic Design, there are only about 4 or 5 assignments due throughout the quarter.  In Foundations, we have an assignment every week, and as long as they don't take 16 hours (like last week's assignment) it's really not too bad.

Also, as you might be able to ascertain from my post before last, I found some research with Ben Mason, who I think is a really cool guy.  He's also my professor for Lab Testing of Soils.  My thesis is going to be something along the lines of "Numerical Methods for Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction of Multiple Building Systems."  Yes, it's a mouthful, but that's how most theses are. In English that translates roughly to "How soils in urban areas behave when the buildings on top of them start shaking in an earthquake."  Our goal is to try to get this research published in a technical journal and probably present it at a conference as well.  In the words of Ben himself, at the end I should basically be able to staple these two documents together and submit it as a thesis, we'll see how all of that goes.

I'm not starting this research right away.  In December Ben will give me some literature to review, and we'll actually begin with the research in about April or May of next year.  The research will really begin in earnest during the summer, when we don't have much else going on.

I also just got my own desk in the office for geotechnical engineering grad students. It's pretty awesome.

And my Alma Mater plays my new substitute Alma Mater in football tomorrow.  Just in case you haven't heard, I'll be wearing blue and will be sitting in the BYU fan section.  Prediction:

BYU - 30, Oregon State -21