Memoirs - course 3 - week 1

 Over two pages or so, write about a meaningful mistake that you made. Provide the setting and provide the information necessary to understand the process in which you were involved. When you are finished describing how you made the mistake, write about why you made it. Draw on at least one or two of the nouns you came up with earlier in this module as you think about your story.

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During my studies at university, I constantly worked on electric circuits and electronic boards. My bachelor’s degree is in mechatronics, which is the union of mechanics, electronics, and software development. It was the last days of the semester, and everybody knows what that means: it is time to deliver the projects that will determine a passing or failing grade. In my eighth semester, I was taking the most famous and difficult subject, robotics architecture.

There is a me before and after this specific subject. Children become real engineers. The project consisted of providing a fully articulated robot arm with four degrees of freedom. The project required a team of students to design the mechanical arm, then develop the electronic circuits, and finally create the software development. The robot’s main tasks were twofold. First, it had to move the arm on the x, y, and z axes, also known as direct kinematics. Second, it had to reach a specified position in space, requiring inverse kinematics calculations to determine how to move the arm. For this, the arm needed to know its own dimensions.

The project involved not only physically moving the arm but also simulating it through SolidWorks and MATLAB. This made it a truly difficult and challenging project because of the careful motor selection required.

Servo motors were forbidden; the professor insisted on using direct current motors. He was a terrible teacher. Everything went wrong with this project: logistics, administration, design, and everything else.

I asked my dad to lend us the credit card. We spent almost a thousand dollars on materials. The rest of the team repaid me, and I returned the money to my mom. My team was awful. My friend Angel designed the robot, and I had to purchase the parts. My dad bought materials. My friend Ruben developed the code for the robot. I spent all day trying to make sense of it all. I should have bought a book and fought against the teacher’s bad decisions.

The robot could not perform inverse kinematics because we were using encoders with the motors, which was almost impossible to manage. We didn’t know how to correct the direct current motors with encoders.

My heart aches knowing how terribly I failed this subject. I felt completely alone. I saw everything going wrong. I should have focused from the beginning on the mechanical design of the robot and learning new things at Home Depot and hardware stores. Instead, I put everyone through a terrible experience.

Memoirs - Course 2 - Week 4

 Think of a mission statement for your essay or memoir. That is, what is the overall argument you want to make or the question your want to pose? Now write a page or so (say, 400-500 words) exploring that idea, explaining what you learned over the course of the events you are going to be describing in your piece, and what you think this experience means or says about life and/or the specific topic you are contemplating. In the final, full-length version of your story, you may of course be subtle about this, but for this exercise be entirely direct. In straightforward language, simply try to articulate for yourself what it is you are getting at, what you mean to say.

You did not need to lose your own peace to make a point.

In this personal essay, I am going to explain how I was affected by the rush, by adrenaline. Being young and dumb, or immature, is something familiar to everyone. It is part of life and part of finding a path to follow on this strange thing called life.

But what is not a part of common development is being mad. I remember being constantly annoyed, angry. Everything was an explosion to me. The desire to be annoyed, awaiting a reason for a disclaimer, a reason to be violent. Too many bad and odd feelings. In this essay, I will talk about how God, life, and friends have changed this mindset of mine. How from the desire for imprudence and my own doubts has emerged an inner peace.

I am glad you are here next to me because it tells me that we might have similar issues. The need to be the strongest of all, the fact that help means weakness, that crying is a burden. That our women need us, our children need us, our parents need us, our teachers, our society, our nation, everybody needs us. At least a tiny bit.

To be honest, nobody needs you. The only person who needs something from you is you.

Through the following pages, I am going to present myself, my virtues, but especially my sorrows. The night that a friend of mine changed my perspective on life. The day I woke up as happy as only my dreams could reach, and the nights that life has provided to me, the challenges of saying goodbye to a father, to a mother.

The shame, the rejections, and the terrible feeling of betrayal that have consumed my soul. How with a change of my own perspective and a change in the perspectives of life, I have started to see my past self as an alien, as the terrible result of not feeling loved and isolated.

While I would like to tell you that it was my conscious working for me to be in a good state, to be true it was my deepest wishes that my unconscious and soul were working to gather them. 

We are going to see my early childhood, my teens, and my twenties, now I am about to turn 30 years old. I am eager for this new chapter in life. I am going to receive 30 as a great and loved number, because I am a life, and I am healthy. 

Memoirs - course 2 - week 3

 Select a simple and very short anecdote that you can tell in a single paragraph—I might tell the story of losing my luggage on a recent trip, for instance. Now write it up four different ways: make the first version funny or lighthearted; the second yearning and nostalgic; the third gloomy and dark; and the fourth angry and prickling. You are telling the same story in all four paragraphs, but you will select language that colors the tone of the story, and the emotional impact conveyed by the voice of the narrator.

First scenario And then I was about to kiss her. I had just confessed my love to her, and she gave me a look. She loved me back. In that exact moment on the night of Monday at the Park we were hugging each other and were face to face. When Cynthia did not stop calling me. Mayra told me to answer her. “Cynthia what is happening?” “Matias just got Robbed” She replied to me. I turn my head to the side and then got back to Mayra: “Matias just got rob!” and Mayra replied in the smartest way possible. “Wait here I am going to look for him”. Matias, my friend, was my partner in crime and helped me to gather courage and went to declare myself to Myara. Matias did not have cash and went to a nearby ATM walking while Mayra and talking, so I was there seating expecting Matias and Mayra to get back while I oversaw our backpacks from school.

Second scenario Ten years had already happend from that delighfull night with my now wife. The moment I confess my love for her. I was at third semester of college. She was working to help support her mom. After classes I was with my very best friend, Angel Matias. I was watching him talking with Cynthia. Matias falled in love of Cynthia from the very first time he saw her. i was at the same situation. i was deeply in love of Mayra. I asked Matias if he would partner with me at the adventure of going to Mayra house and tell her I want to be with her. We went to a park in the city of Santa Catarina. i saw Mayra there, waiting for me. I was so happy and eager to confess my love. matias told me he need it some cash and was going to search for an ATM.

Third scenario Cynthia was just telling me. "Matias got robbed". i was so afraid. how was it possible I left him all alone? While I was with a girl. My friend. My brother in crime. He was just looking for an ATM nearby. I am going to never forget myself how Matias got robbed while he was just trying to help me.

Four scenario Cynthia was calling and calling. This girl always get in my nerves. Mayra was hugging me and was feeling how my phone was ringing and ringing. She got mad also and said to me: "answer the phone, might be important". It was just Cynthia. Annoyed I answer the phone: "Cynthia I am busy". She then via the phone yells at me: "Matias got robbed". Oh f. Matias always does the same. i asked him no to go far away. We did not have a dime to spare, but at least we were safe being at a public park with Mayra and familires around us. "

Memoirs - Course 2 - Week 3 - Exercise 2

 Write a embarassment moment of your life. Do the writting in the first persona but described as in the third person description. As some one else watching

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"Today is the day. Besides, we are on winter vacation. I know Natali is going to be there at school. I am going to give a gesture of my feelings for her." How dumb I was back there. Without a plan or an objective, but I remember how the heartbeat was so fast, and I was so happy to make something nice for her.

Natali, a few months back, had just lost her dad, and being 16 was already difficult enough. She was crying one Saturday at poetry club, and seeing her like that gave me a new perspective of her.

The months went by, and last semester of high school was a dream come true. We were preparing ourselves to make a little bit more. Dad did not have a job, and mom was able to provide some. I gathered some bus money and was able to do so. I was going to give her a dozen red flowers to her.

I was at the laboratory. That Thursday, Natali went to high school. I had a dozen flowers already. I went out of the lab and followed her, and I gave her the flowers. She asked, "What for?" My greatest imagination was only able to respond, "Just because."

My friends have made fun of that for the past 12 years.