I dislike my teacher, strongly

I really don't like my class this semester. It's not because it's hard, but because I don't every know what to expect from my professor. He gives a ton of homework, and when you do the problem like the book says, he takes points off for not giving enough explanation. Or, he'll take points off because you didn't go far enough solving the problem, even though you did exactly what the problem asked.

For example, we're doing some work with Fourier series equations. Basically, it's a standard equation series with standard coefficients (numbers in front) for each term. Pictured below, we had to solve for ao, an, and bn.

Anyway, I solved for them, since the book said to solve for the coefficients. Yet, I get points off for not showing what the full equation is. That typical of him, you can do everything right, according to the book, but he expects you to go above and beyond. That extra effort or detail is constantly changing, an unknown. I'm over it now. I just do what I can.

I had my first test last Tuesday. I studied all weekend for it, including my day off on President's Day, which was beautiful outside. I felt like I understood what was going on and I had some confidence going into the test, although I knew in the back of my head I couldn't be prepared for the test because you couldn't predict what he would throw at you.

Up to the test, we have focused on 3 main topics. We spent a few weeks on topic 1, the majority of the time on topic 2, and 1 week on topic 3 (with only 1 hw assignment on topic 3 that had not been returned to us). Topic 2 had 2 ways to approach, depending on how the problem was given. Basically, there was an "easy" way and a "hard" way, going by the amount of work involved. The only thing we did with the "hard" way was an example in class that literally took 2 class periods to solve (3 hours). Everything else, homework and all, was on the "easy" way. Our professor even hinted in class to pay attention to what we had done in homework.

Test time comes. 3 problems, 1 hr 15 min to finish. I open the test. I turn to problem 1 - it's the hard version of topic 2, something we haven't done. I decide that I'll come back to that problem since I don't want to spend the entire time working on problem 1. I turn to problem 2 - it's a nearly impossible version of topic 1. Nearly, because I know how to solve it, but it's unlike anything he's shown us in class or in the homework. Again, I don't want to spend the class period trying to learn how to do a new problem, so I'll come back to it. I turn to problem 3 - it's a hard, but doable, version of topic 3. I begin there. Long story short, the test was really, really tough. I finished in a shade under 2 hours (no one finished in the alloted time, for what it's worth. But hey, he runs long every class period every week, so we're even.) I got answers for all of the problems, but I have my doubts on their accuracy. Everyone else seemed to be in the same boat, so I felt somewhat better about feeling hopeless. All about beating the average.

I don't mind hard tests. That's not what I'm complaining about. It's an engineering class, it's going to be hard. I'm ok with that. If you were following me, we tested on topic 1, topic 2 "hard", and topic 3. I'm not ok with hinting that the test will be over what we focused on, and then throwing out 2 problems that we've never done as well as a topic that we covered for a week instead of what we spend 80% of our time on. That's what I don't like. I've had it happen before, but I guess it really ticked me off this time because I wasn't expecting it. At GT, you knew the professors were going to kill you. That was par for the course. You survive and move on. Here, the professors are usually reasonable and helpful, but this class has been the exception. I guess I got used to the easy going professors. Maybe I'm getting old and cranky. Either way, I'm ready for this class to be over. Really, I'm ready for my degree to be over. Slowly getting there, but I've still got at least another year.

Well, enough of my rant. I'm surprised you made it this far. Ryan complaining about an engineering class isn't exactly compelling reading. More pictures coming soon, depending on how demanding this class continues to be.

Found It

As you know, we went to Kennesaw to buy my new ring since I lost it. Wouldn't you know after we bought the new ring, after I put up flyers in the gym about my lost ring and searched "the whole house", we find it. And by we, I mean Christi.

I had gotten home from taking my test and was feeling pretty down. Landon met me at the door and instantly put me in a great mood. He followed me into our room and I changed into some comfortable clothes since I was still in my work clothes. While I was changing, Landon wanted to climb onto our bed and play. So, we did and we were play wrestling, having fun and laughing. Christi joined us and Landon was jumping and crawling all over the place. All of a sudden, Christi said "Ryan, your ring!". I looked down at my finger and said, "What about it, it's still on my finger. I didn't loose this one!". She said, "No, your ring, your old ring." I looked at her puzzled and saw here pull back the bed sheets. She reached down and pulled out the ring that I had lost. After all that time, it was in between the bed sheets. Apparently I was tired one night and didn't take my ring off. Sometime during the night it slipped off my finger, or I took it off in my sleep. It is a little loose on my finger, so I think it could have fallen off. Really, I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm very happy we found it.

I'm happy because I didn't "lose" my ring anymore - I just misplaced it for a few weeks. Also, they gave us all the money back we spent on the 2nd ring, which was nice since it was an expected expenditure. I mean, who doesn't like getting money back when they don't have to spend it?

The ring is back. Everyone is happy. Now, let's hope I don't do it again.

Running Around

We've been doing a lot of running around recently. We went to Kennesaw the past 2 weeks for my new wedding band. In case you missed it, I lost my wedding band a few weeks ago. I have no idea what happened to it, and that's what bothers me most. I know, I'm a terrible husband for losing my wedding band. Noone felt worse than I did, for sure.

It either was left in the gym or disappeared around here. I always take it off when I workout because I don't want the knurling on the bars to scratch the ring, which it will do very easily since the ring is gold. I've been over that last day a million times. I've thought about it so much, I'm not sure what actually happened because your mind can make you believe something did or didn't happen. For example, I always put the ring on while getting dressed, so I'm confident I put it back on. However, I was in a hurry that day because I had class that night, so I might have forgotten too in my hurried state. But even then it was in my bag. Maybe it fell out, maybe I put it on and fell off somewhere, or I never put it in my bag. I have no idea. I was confident I took it off before giving Landon a bath, and thought it fell off or Landon found it on the end table it was on (he's good like that). So where did it go? I have no idea. I got excited last week because someone at work found a ring in the parking lot where the gym is, so I went to claim it, but it wasn't mine. I'm still searching, and I have a feeling that whenever we move out of this house, we'll find it.

While we were up there we went to some of the places where we used to live and frequent. We spent a significant part of our lives up there. Nearly 5 years living there, including our first year of marriage in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment. I was still in school for my senior year and Christi was supporting us on her salary. It definitely wasn't easy, but looking back we had a lot of fun and grew up a lot. The area hasn't changed much, but they have built up some more. I guess that's par for the course in metro Atlanta.

We finally bought Landon a new car seat while we were up there. We have been looking for a while, but couldn't find what we wanted. We happened to stop by Target and they had one that met our desires for a new car seat. He was still in his smaller car seat that only faced rear-ward. It was nice because you could simply place it in a base that stayed in either car. 1 seat for 2 cars. It was rated for up to 32 lbs and he's only 24.5 lbs. He could have stayed in there longer, but his feet were hanging out and the seat belts were hard to buckle if he was wearing any kind of jacket. Landon is happier with the additional room. We made it forward facing and he seems to enjoy being able to see where we are going. It can be placed rear facing, but it was more of a pain to install, so it's forward facing for now. We actually installed it in the Target parking lot. It sounded like a great idea, until you try to change it while hurrying and forget to do something important. Needless to say, we won't be doing that again.

We're also busy just around town. I know, how often can I say that before it gets old? We're just busy. It's not entertaining and it doesn't give me much time to write about what is going on, which mainly is coming home, cooking dinner, playing with Landon, finishing homework, and sleeping. We have been cooking dinner at home more, and we like it a lot. Not only is it more budget friendly, we've been able to eat pretty healthy while maintaining some good taste in what we cook. The downside is you actually have to cook and clean instead of tossing restaurant container in the trash. So far, cooking and cleaning is winning. I think one big thing is we just feel better after eating at home. Maybe it's all psychological, but we're eating better foods and more appropriate portions, and as a result we don't have food comas and have more energy to play with Landon. We've got normal workout routines now too, so that is helping us as well. The downside is that too takes up more time in the day, but we make it work.

I've got some videos of Landon to post. I had hoped to do it by now, but I have a test coming up next week and I need to study for it. Wish me luck, I'm going to need it. Hopefully by next weekend I can post some more pictures and videos.

Congrats

This news is a few days old, but just wanted to say congratulations to Jason, Christi's brother, on getting engaged this past weekend to his Lynn. Everyone is very excited about the news.

Landon 13 months Pictures

Wow, January flew by. February is almost half way over. It seems like every month is shorter than the previous one. Being so busy each doesn't help, either.

Landon keeps growing and exploring, doing new things every week it seems. His favorite things to do are playing and reading books, by far. He also loves getting his teeth brushed. He'll stop everything to get his teeth brushed. He loves the taste, mainly, but it also seems feel good to his mouth. Another thing Landon is doing is the "Indian" noise with your hand on your mouth (you know, the one where you open your mouth and make a noise, and then put your hand on and off your mouth). I have no idea what it is really called. Anyway, we started off showing him how to do it one day, and I really couldn't tell you why. He loved it, though, and before you know it he was doing it on his own.

Here are some pictures of Landon this past month. He's harder to take pictures of now because he is 100% go all the time. He doesn't want to be still or even look at the camera when you try to take a picture. He's got better things to do.

Landon deciding which book to read


Lots of books to choose from!


Getting ready to play on the school bus


Landon is passed out. He always sticks hit butt up in the air. I'm not sure where he got that from, but I sleep with my arms like that sometimes.


He also sleeps like this. At least 1 leg up in the air with his hands behind his head. Look familiar? He's been doing the hands behind the head for a long time.


Sappoo (My grandfather) and Landon getting ready to read a book


Reading another book. Landon could sit with you forever and read. He loves it.


Landon sitting inside his book basket. He climbed in a read a few books, but then realized he couldn't get out that easily because his legs were stuck.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures. More to come soon!

Landon 14 months

14 months old. Wow. This year keeps flying by. I can't believe how old Landon is and how big he is getting. It's amazing.

Landon continues to grow fast. I'm not sure how tall he is now, but he's definitely taller than his last visit. He's also getting stronger. He's enjoying being able to move things, including things he isn't supposed to like our chairs all over the kitchen and the trash can. Yea, he gets a kick out of doing things he isn't supposed to do. He has a pattern. He'll go in a certain order of "can't touch" things until he finds one we can't block. Once we figure out that pattern and block them all, he changes it up. Yea, we've got our full.

We put him on our bathroom scale the other day and he was 24 lbs. He's definitely getting heavier and harder to carry around. So, we let him run around as often as we can. It's a win-win, he loves it and it makes him sleepy at night, which makes our job a lot easier. He's getting to the point where he knows he is sleepy and he wants to go to bed. We will be playing or reading a book and he will stop whatever we are doing and come just lay in our laps. We used to lay on the couch or rock in the chair in his room, but now he wants us to pick him up and put him straight in bed. If we don't, he'll get fussy until we do. So it makes night time a lot easier for us now that he is doing that. Hopefully he keeps it up.

As I've mentioned a few times, we've had some trouble with Landon and eating food. For a while he had to eat just baby food or something with the consistency of grits. Anything else he would eat a few bites, then gag on the food and throw up. Thankfully, we have gotten past that stage. After many frustrating dinners, he's now eating solid foods much better. His favorite right now is the Gerber little ravioli packages that have either meet or cheese combined with veggies. He's also eating bananas, apple sauce, mac & cheese, bread, mashed potatoes, and many other foods similar to that. Yea, they are all still pretty soft and chewy, but we have to start somewhere. I think something that helped him was getting more teeth up top. He now has at least 7 teeth (unsure exactly, hard to see and he won't cooperate). For the longest time he only had 4 on the bottom, but he now has 4 bottom, 3 top, with 2-3 more looking like they are coming soon.

Landon loves to play. He's 100% go all the time. Lately we're getting him more time around kids his age. He had a friend come over the other week and play for a while. We're hoping that little girl and another friend of ours who has a boy around Landon's age can meet up once a month or so. We're all friends, but finding a time to meet up is proving tough. At church every week he's in nursery playing with a lot of kids his age. His energy really stands out there because the people keeping routinely tell us he's a busy boy. He used to not like us leaving, but now he just looks at us and then finds some toys to play with. He's definitely becoming more independent. He likes to play on his own at home, although if he wants your attention he'll come over and let you know. His personality is definitely coming out. He loves attention in public. When we go out to eat he's always waving and smiling at everyone sitting close to us. You would think he doesn't get any at home. He's just a happy boy who loves to play.

I have some pictures of the last few months to load, but I haven't yet. I hope to have those up this weekend. Keep checking back for more updates and pictures.

Snow Pictures

Here are the pictures from our "snow" day. I know, that was like a month ago. Better late than never, I guess.

Snow in the yard


Frozen car


Better view of all the ice


It wasn't really snow, just slush.


Landon had a great time playing outside, even though it was mainly ice


Trying to run everywhere


Landon smiling. He had a great time


Playing in the snow


Mommy making sure he is staying warm


Landon had a great time playing. He was very unhappy when we came back inside (so cold, didn't want him to stay out there that long).

Finally, I posted some pictures. I know, it's about time. I'm trying to keep some updates coming. My class is demanding a lot of my time outside of work and home. It's tough. I hope to have some more updates coming soon