mementos mori

My friend states as we stare at the white board together. We spend a lot of time in the grad student lounge, mainly due to our own individual interests. The white board is a collection of doodles, equations, and thoughts from the last few months. None of that matters to us, as we stare at the circle I just drew on the white board.  "What does the circle have to do with any of this?" is how my friend responds. He's not frustrated, just genuinely confused at how I decide to describe the fundamental concepts of Electrical Engineering... with a circle.  "Well, its a drawing. It's like art," I say, much to his dismay. I see the look on his face, and realize I now have to explain myself. My friend isn't an art guy. Not because he can't do art, or doesn't like art. My friend isn't an "art guy" not because his thought process is much more logical, mathematical, reasonable. He's someone that can talk about math theories that go over my h...

I've started to notice that as I progress through my degree, I've been feeling increasingly more creative. I'm not too sure what it is, maybe its the fact that I've been drowning in math equations, or lab practicals, or both. Maybe it's the fact that I threw myself headfirst into an intellectually challenging degree program without the best preparation. Either way, there's a certain amount of creative energy that I feel has been lacking in my coursework as I progress through this degree.  And I personally don't enjoy that.  People tell me that I put in more effort in some of my creative projects than my own schoolwork. That's only partially true. I think I'm so motivated by the program I start to think about what I can apply my knowledge to; and since I don't know enough about my field, I'm just jumping into everything. This might be done to the detriment of my studies- or to the enhancement. I guess that's more opinion than fact. Is ther...