Mentor Log, Encore!

Yesterday afternoon, I rushed to Jason Locklin's building right after school on my bicycle and my father (not rushing) brought my Stirling engine prototype from home. Jason had told some of his lab graduate students about the engine, and we ended up spending the whole afternoon, and some of the evening working on this engine. By the way, the engine doesn't work. And still doesn't. We found that the pressure vessel had some air leaks, and the power piston baloon was too loose, and then leaking air as well, and we changed the balance of the leverage on the flywheel. That sounds like a lot, and it was -- we spent nearly three hours working -- sometimes consulting the web to look at the instructions, and the Stirling cycle (I have been getting great practice explaining the Stirling engine to people via explanations of the weird contraption I have been carrying around town) but mostly looked at the engine as the candle heated beneath it, and turning the flywhell, and watching it not go. There were about four of us around it, and around 6:15, my father came looking for me and joined the party. We got it almost working, and the leaks sealed, but something still seems to be off. I tried it this morning (didn't work) after some new glue had dried but it turns out that the super glue we tried stiffened up the balloon, so I am thinking: replacement. This will be my third balloon sacrifice.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007 4-6:45p.m.

Mentor Log

I must include my father as an additional mentor, because he has be present throughout my creation of my product and helped me with the construction a lot. I would say, with him, I can log another hour, at least.

Mentor log

Friday, November 16, 2007 I went over to Jason Locklin, a, at times goofy, but sometimes deadly serious chemistry researcher who really has hopes that what he creates in his lab and with the students he teaches will become something important and influential in the society we live in. I went to his lab and there he was. "I just got a new windshield" he said as he came into the building as I did. He was feeling sick, he told me in an email, that morning and still didn't feel great but worked very hard and well regardless. It was about 3 o clock. He said, "I don't havem uch time for you, so you'll just sit in while I present a project to some new graduate students." I stood around in his lab, among a swarm of lab workers, test tubes of all shapes and sizes, computer screens, the smell of ethol acetate in the air. I examined the glass cabinet doors inscribed in molecule designs and chemical element symbols. I couldn't make any sense of them, but I liked how they looked, how they all overlapped one another. Jason came back into the lab and swept the two grad students and me to his office, then a conference room, and after our conference room was needed, the dark break room. I learned so much in his mini-lecture to these students about polymerization, about the roles of catalysts, about making a molecule conductive, and super-conductive that I don't think I would have ever learned in a chemistry class (on my level anyway). I was intrigued by all that he said, and liked the way he lectured a lot. When he was primarily over, he turned to me and smiling said, "Anne, why don't you explain to these guys your project!" So I proceeded, at first hesistantly, to explain that I was studying solar energy engineering and I was in the process of making a Stirling Engine, and then explained the stirling engine, drew its cycle and what my engine looked like, and then chatted it up with the students as Jason ran around doing his own things about what I wanted to study later, engineering, and chemistry. It was a lovely time and when they mentioned it was five o clock I was taken aback. Already! So I was swept away from their busy business, said good bye to, and planned another meeting (to show Jason my engine) for the week after thanksgiving.

2 Hours

The Victorian Era: Lastly and leastly

The Victorian Age was marked firstly by the longest one reign of England by miss Queen Victoria, making a name for the era, and also by the height of the British empire. Imperialism was in full swing and with British troops spanning the globe, influence for writers and poets was abound in glory. The Arabian Nights were made popular in the west during this time, and so was The Novel, but that's a different story. The novel became the new writing form with the masters Jane austin and Charles Dickens, along with the Bronte sisters and the many, many English novelists who littered the scene.

The Reform Act of 1832 really started the era, which humanized working conditions in the new industrial age a bit, and the times continued with drastic changes in society. Darwin came out with the Origin of Species, the first World's Fair occurred in London in 1851, "the sun always shown on the British Empire" -- life was wild.

The literature of the age reflected its authors' changing environment and the tangible progress that was running through the middle of the 1800s. From Romantic ideals and lofty dreams, the Victorian writers and poets wanted to bring their writing back down to a more real level, something that responded to the lives of real peoople, the people living in cities, the poor, the prostituted. Despite these ideals of being real, most all the novelists of the period idealized or sentimentalized the lives of the poor, and always gave happy endings that tied their stories closed -- an aspect completely unrealistic. The poets, though acting as transitory figures between the Romantics and the Modernists of the 20th century, still held the Romantic importance of their heritage strongly, lamenting, like Keats, of the lost days of the Medival chivalry and the Renaissance.

Lord Tennyson's Isabel is a lovely ode to a girl, more over a woman. He says she is "the queen of marriage, a most perfect wife." Perhaps she was his, although that thought is dissented by the great concern over Isabel's purity and great grace of being. She is very strong, clear minded and quick-witted, and intelligent. She does not let idle gossip get her down, and she looks like nothing lower than a saint in his words. Tennyson describes a real woman, a live woman, who despite being surrounded by foolishness and low-downness, still holds to the ideals of a woman of the medieval times, who would deserve a knightly, chivalrous man.

Robert Browning's Youth and Art nearly made me want to cry, and change the name of this post. This poem ought to come first -- its good, and lonely, and I, like one who's memorized a bird's call and recognized it out in the world, was found very moved by reading this poem. It is the story of two people that live across the street from one another, an example of real live and real people, that could have been true lovers and the best of partners but neither ever made the initation of contact, neither caught the others' eye and so the possibility of their romance was wasted, and they moved on to other things. I liked:
"Why did not you pinch a flower
In a pellet of clay and fling it?
Why did not I put a power
Of thanks in a look, or sing it?"

The narrarator is the woman, and throughout the poem she reveals a certain sense of anger, or frustration, or remorse that her dreams never made it, and the two young artists each made their paths, but never crossed them. I really liked this one. Maybe I like to relate to it, made it just is written so that it is easy to relate to, but Browning certainly made an impact with this work.

Matthew Arnold wrote Philomela, a serious work. This poem has many references to antiquity, many greek names, greek words, but while having this poem sound, perhaps, like complete poetic jargon, he still holds a sense of reality, and freshness -- raw feeling along with the classic. "Eternal Passion! /Eternal Pain!" These words sum up the whole poem. So maybe this poem is sort of a waste of words, when he could have just said it in four. But, nonetheless, I do feel a difference between this poem, and the classic style poems of the Romantics

The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy is a winter poem. "When Frost was spectre-gray...dregs made desolate The weakening eye of day." Our poet has lost his hope, and he just wants to go inside, by the fire, curl up, and everyone else does too. It is night, and it is cold, but HARK! a thrush sounds out and reveals a mysterious hope and delight by singing, and the poet is in awe. Its a nice, simple poem. It reveals a lot about life during that time too. Just the feelings of the people during a season. What they want and like to do. I see that a lot in this Victorian poetry -- the base of real life, and basic reality for their poetry. At times its nice to relate to their words, other times I want something more exciting.

English Romantics

The Romanticism period in England was a response to the ultra-rationalism that the thinkers of the Enlightenment in Europe highlighted. It occurred along side the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1800s, a period of great change in almost all aspects of normal life. People were moving from the country to the cities, farmers' sons were turned into factory workers. In lieu of all the industrial progress that was said to be advancing society, inversely, the quality of life for most English people was diminishing. This might be why some people wanted to focus more of the beauty of nature, and the possibilities of the imagination.
Romanticism was said to be influenced greatly by the French Revolution of 1793 as well. The ideals of equal freedom for all men, for the defense of the working class, Utopian dreams, etc. Over all it was a reaction to the rationalization of art and nature that was becoming standard in the intellectual and aristocratic sects of Europe. The Romantics wanted to keep the mysticism of the middle ages concerning natural things; they also liked heroes and novels.

Romantic poets were stressing the importance of intuition, imagination, and feeling. They were counter-rationalist and some were accused of being downright Irrational. Romantics also were strong advocates for Nationalism, the belief that the nation is the most important aspect of culture, and culture should be focused on the national history, local folklore, etc.

In William Blake's Night he describes the world overcome by night, also overcome by angels who put the weary and sad to sleep, who appease the wild animals crying, who spread a blanket of peace over a tumultuous world. Blake gives reason to nature, even when he is trying to make nature seem like an imaginative and beautiful place; He understands people's curiosity of why concerning nature but gives them a beautiful reason instead of something they might not understand, or want to understand.
William Wordsworth's Ode 536, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood, deeply attracted me. Perhaps it was the great beauty of the scenes that he portrayed or maybe it was the fact that underlying all of his romantic glory of verse, he had a profound sense of loss that went through the whole poem like a hard rain through the clothes.

"Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"

These lines were lines I could have written. Frustration settled in this poem like it does in many a visionary life I think. He has in this ode a Romanticism felt very deeply, and a sense of importance towards feeling and memory that impacted greatly writing that came after him.
Lord Byron's poem On Chillon is also a good example of Romantic poetry, with all its round about exclamations and awe-inspired lyrics. "For there thy habitation is the heart -
The heart which love of thee alone can bind;" and also the good references to the heart and it being the center of all men's goodness. In truth, I have no idea what Byron is talking about here other than that he is praising the feeling of freedom and chainlessness that the heart often heeds for in the darkest of times. Alas, he strives to alleviate the pain of the imprisoned and heighten the glory of national martyrs.
Shelley's Asia: From Prometheus Unbound, a response I believe to a classic as often Romantics wrote, but is in fact a poem in a play -- a recreation of an old Greek drama that was lost. This poem is a very beautiful speech about passing from life to death, a hero's death though since the Elysian fields are mentioned:"Till through Elysian garden islets/By thee, most beautiful of pilots,/Where never mortal pinnace glided." It almost seems as though they are happy about dying, the character is, and the beauty of their death is overwhelming, and paradisaical. I am seeing a common thread of lightness and innocence concerning life and death and aging and youth in these Romantic poems while there is a deeper meaning seemingly behind every corner.
Keats' Robin Hood celebrates the national cultural history, as was supposed to be common with Romantic poets and tries to bring back the sense of camaraderie that the people of England used to have in the Middle Ages. "Gone, the merry morris din;Gone, the song of Gamelyn;Gone, the tough-belted outlaw" he sings, and he is very sad. Lamenting the lost times of Robin Hood and the absense of Robin Hood's presence though the many forests of England, he honors old Robin, saying that the heroes of his old time would cry at the state of today's world. Pretty sad poem. Pretty sad times.

Mentor Log 3

I haven't gotten together face to face again with Jason Locklin but we have communicated greatly through emails about my product. I also tried to go to one of his classes. He has a class called "Soft Materials" and he was giving a lecture on Polymers and Photovoltaics but I got lost on my first attempt through mis-information on where it was and got confused and frustrated walking in circles around the Driftmier engineering building on the University Campus (The lights were off when I went to the classroom primarily, on when I went back on a different day, the door was open. I was puzzled and confused, demanding myself endlessly if I just did not know how UGA classes worked, that maybe they were in a lab...). When I emailed Jason afterwards he thought that they effort to get they could count as hours spent towards my project too -- but he could have been kidding. The next time his class occured I was in the middle of a hazy grog after getting my wisdom teeth taken out, and in no able position to audit a class.
Despite our lack of physical meetings, we've discussed the product many times over email. There is one solar cell kit made from blackberry dye and a chemical called Titanium Oxide, that Jason said I probably wouldn't be able to get anywhere else, but it costs $40 and I'm both cheap and poor. I found, and shared with Jason, a website on how to make a solar cell with pieces of Copper, on burned enough to produce a cuprous oxide layer, and another project for a sterling engine that demonstrates the sun's ability, or the ability really of heat in general to produce energy. I remember all the things about solar energy that Jason has taught me throughout my solo research on the web.

Macbeth I

We enter the scene with witches, and Banquo and Macbeth, two noblemen of Scotland are sidetracked from a war and get their fortunes told. Macbeth is told he will become king. Banquo is told his sons with be kings. They wonder between themselves, "can the devil speak true?" but later they are brought back to the important present, where the king deeds them very important men.
But with a letter from Macbeth in hand, his wife conjures up a mortal plan to kill the king, and make fate come faster. And.."the king comes here to-night" cries a messenger. Lady Macbeth goes crazy with delight and mischief, and when Macbeth comes home convinces him that that night shall be the death of King Duncan, and relates her plan to him. The king has his doubts, and sings a long speech about it, but his wife convinces him that they cannot fail. CANNOT. "Screw your courage to the sticking place and we'll not fail."
So they prepare for the night, to kill the man who loves old Macbeth like a son. But what dos he know of his wife???