January 31, 1941

Iowa City, Iowa

Jan 31, 1941

Dear Mama, Papa, “kernel of the nut,” “triple dimples” & “tall & slim”

I had intended to write sooner but as I had not found out about a lot of things I thought I would wait awhile till I found out some more. Well, I haven’t found out much but if you are to get this letter on Saturday I will have to get this letter written and posted sometime this morning. So I will do this and if anything out of the ordinary occurs I will let you know in a special communication.

I cannot quite understand how my body is working these days. First I feel real punk for awhile and then it passes for awhile. At any rate I felt better during my tests than I thought I would about Thursday or Friday of last week. Of that I was naturally very thankful but I don’t know if it helped a terrible lot. The only doctoring I did was in the shape of some Vicks cough drops, used mainly on the days when I woke up with the swallowy sore throat.

How I got along or think I got along in my tests.

1. Industrial Stoichiometry — The final test in this nemesis of mine was the hardest thing I have have yet run across. As I look back over this course it reminds me of a ton of nitroglycerin attached to a semester long fuse. Last fall I saw the fuse lit but didn’t know then what it led to. Last Saturday morning the last of the fuse burned and the ton of nitroglycerin went off in my face. There were five problems in the test and each of them was pretty much of a stickler. However, I managed to get finished except for the second part of part C of problem five. I was talking to a fellow last night and I found out that I had expressed the answer to one of the problems in the wrong kind of units. So far that is the only mistake I can think of altho there are no doubt more of them. I really wonder what I got in that test. I asked the teacher and he said the papers would not be corrected until sometime next week so I guess I will have to wait until then to find out how I did.

2. Chemical Industries — In this course also there was been no official communique yet. There were 13 questions in the test and that was an unlucky number for me since one of them was about something I had forgotten all about. Last fall sometime we had to read a report in a magazine on sulfuric acid production and use during 1939. I read it and took notes on it, but promptly forgot about it since it was sort of a dry article. Well, it popped up in the test, so that means I missed 1/13 right off the bast. The rest of the test, however, was quite easy except for a part of another question which I was not sure about. I got my revised notebook back and this time I had gotten a B on it so that if I get a B in the test I will get B in the course. I think that perhaps I will but I am making no promises of any sort whatsoever.

3. Mechanics of Solids — The thing that I did in this test gives me terrible griping sensations in the region of my stomach. In one of the six problems I made a mistake in figuring a moment of inertia of a body with the result that my answer was off. This was enough to give me B in the test and therefor B as a grade. That makes me sort of angry at myself. However, it is over so I guess that is that (So that’s “that”)

4. German — the test in this was rather easy as I suspected it would be. I missed 2 things in it, which entitled me to an A, any way that is what I got.

5. Drawing — this too was a very easy test, easier (it seemed to me) than almost any of the rpevious tests so that I got an A in the course. I do not know what I got in the test, since only the final grades were posted. The way the grades in this test were rather queer, about 10 A’s, 10 B’s, a whole slug of C’s and D’s and some Cond and Fd’s. What seemed funny to me I that there should be so few B’s in relation to the rest of the grades. Well, that’s not my worry so I will forget about it.

I do not know exactly what I should do about my schedule. I have not registered yet but I will either this afternoon or sometime to-morrow. My adviser (the one with the round, pig-like, placid, fat face) has figured out a way to get thru in 2 years from now but it has some very undesirable features. Feature no. 1 is that it depends on my petitioning my way out of second semester drawing which is a very dumb thing to do in my opinion. Feature no. 2 is that I would take the second semester of Phys. Chem before the first which is not such a good ideas.

I cannot make up my mind just what I should do. I think I will let it rest like this. If I can get drawing on Tues and Thu which I will have to in order to get it included at all (and which is problematical since I would have to switch sections and the sections already almost filled) I will take what I had originally planned of Mech of Materials, Ch Eng Principles I, Ger, Econ and of course drawing. If I do not, I am in a quandary as to what I should do.

Another undesirable feature of the 2 year plan is that I could not take German this next semester. I am sort of inclined to stretch it out to 2½ years and therefore get some sort of continuity in what I take. Besides there is the possibility of my never coming back to this lousy place in which event taking a lot of hard stuff next semester would be cutting off my nose to spite my face. I made some inquiries about the art course but it didn’t impress me particularly. I think I could do just about as much by fooling around by myself. That is of course, with pencil and ink. They mentioned charcoal and conte crayon (whatever that is) which sounded rather interesting but they also mentioned watercolor work which immediately put me on the defensive. I can still recall what a mess watercolor cork was in the grades. So I do not think I will try to take an art courses.

I was downtown yesterday browsing thru the books stores to see if they had any textbooks that were required for fundamental drawing courses, but there were none, that is officially. I ran across a book on perspective that looked pretty good but I believe that that is taken up in my Eng. Drawing book someplace so that it would be rather useless to get it. I think I will continue my old habit of drawing for recreation and get my training in it that way. After all, I am beginning to think (hear! hear!) that the best training is the training that you get doing the stuff you like to do. In that case training to be a chemical engineer has in my case about a X2562 rating.

My scholarship check for $50 will not be here until sometime next week so that I am going to pay my tuition with a check and using the $50 + another check for $13.50 pay for my room. That way there will be a minimum of red tape I think.

There should be some money up at the Supt of Schools office in Ft. Dodge for one of my Eur. History books now. Only one of them was sold last fall.

I almost think that unless I write and tell you differently I will take the 2½ years to finish. Maybe I am doing an unwise thing but as I said before, it probably will never make any difference what I take no anyway. At any rate, if I can get the drawing I am going to take it.

With love

Carl

[Marginal addenda]

The geranium sort of perished for lack of sunshine or something but the other plant you sent and my two cactuses are doing quite well.

One of my shirts needs some shortening in the sleeve. I will endeavor to make it clear by pins.

I will send some laundry home sometime soon as I see my stock of shirts is falling down.

I was invited to go on a bobsled ride last night but I didn’t go. I thought I would probably freeze.

I think that I will have a couple of books to buy this semester, depending on what I take.