This semester I’ve embraced Brown’s open curriculum in a limp handshake. I’ve greeted it like a cousin’s new boyfriend at Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve approached warily on my tiptoes, finding that, infact, I am not good at walking on my tiptoes. My toes are not meant to be tipped, they’re best when they’re flat. The doctor always tells me to walk on my tiptoes, which I think is maybe too difficult a request even if I’m not, infact, concussed. Sometimes my doctor taps my knee and I pretend that I need to kick when, really, I don’t need to kick at all.
I’ve embraced the open curriculum like a casual acquaintance you haven’t seen in a while and don’t actually know very well, but you go in for a hug regardless because your roommate (who knew them first and better) went in for a hug and you don’t want to appear hostile by simply offering your hand.
I’m patting the open curriculum on the back like a middle-aged baseball coach who’s also a dad congratulating Zachary on making his first home run.
Yes, this semester I’m taking ENGN 520: Circuits. I use the term “taking” loosely. Very loosely. If my involvement in Circuits was pants, they’d be hanging around my ankles by now. I sit in on the class and take notes.
What I’ve discovered, I must say, is quite saddening: I could not have been an engineer. I could not have even been an engine or a neer. I have immense difficulty listening to voices that aren’t my own, making lectures very difficult. I’ve realized I forgot most everything I learned in calculus. I’ve realized that I’m really very bad at certain things, things like engineering.
I have been doodling, however. Doodling ferociously inside the section of my notebook so innocently reserved for electrical circuits. Below, I include examples of my impressive artistic prowess:
- “Pants”
This first image I’ve entitled, “Pants.” This is for obvious reasons. I was inspired by the pants worn by my ENGN 520 professor as well as the pants I was wearing at the time of the doodle’s creation. Like Professor man, my legs were also encased in fabric tubes. Pants are wonderful for horse riding, I assume. Also for doing problem sets and bowling.
2. “Something From Nothing No. 5”
Very inventively, I’ve danced with the concept of emptiness, asking important questions like: What does emptiness mean? How can something simple also exist as many things at once? What does EPA stand for, or is it mainly sitting most of the time?
3. “Miscellaneous Musings No. 45”
I have named the young man who appears in the upper lefthand corner Albert Robinson. You will also observe several noses and commonplace fruits. The meaning here, I think, is clear. This is of course commentary on environmental and national resource security as well as the future of the global financial system.
Thus, my time in ENGN 520: Electrical Circuits and Signals has not been entirely useless. I have found my place in the world of pen and ink. I’ve found security in watching nodes becomes abstract noses, watching patterns come alive on my humble page. Yes, I have become a true engineer. An engineer of creativity.
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