Saturday, December 31, 2005

a wedding for rachel

another friend married... tonight rachel and john tied the knot. it was a very pretty wedding with red and gold and snowflake luminarias everywhere, but i was stessed out the whole time because they told me at the last minute that they needed me to dj. normally, this would be just fine, but according to church rules they could only play squeaky-clean swing music. to me, it's really not a wedding unless you play "YMCA" and "Brick House." but i cooperated.

however, i learned that the dj cannot please everyone. while i was very distracted and putting together a playlist, Some Guy came up to me and tried to talk about music. i remember very little of this conversation, but adam was standing next to me and was not distracted, so he filled me in on the details later. Some Guy came up and asked me if i had any good music. apparently i fixed him with my death eye and asked him to elaborate on that. he said, "you know, good music." i asked him what he liked and that's all i remember.

he said country. the one genre i really don't like. i'm glad i missed that comment. then while mr Guy was looking over my shoulder he saw a johnny cash song and said, "oo, play that!" which i couldn't do, because i had some strict rules, and would have sucked anyway because i have exactly one johnny cash song on my computer, the one from the kill bill 2 soundtrack, and it's not a dancing song. then apparently he caught sight of judy garland, and started singing "somewhere over the rainbow". glad i missed that too. then i added a few swing-able beatles songs to my playlist and mr Guy made a disgusted face and left. i'm really glad i missed that, because i didn't have time to maim that Guy for disrespecting the beatles. what a loser.

andy swears he passed Some Guy during the dance, who loudly exclaimed to his friends, "this music sucks!" rachel's little brother daniel gave me a hard time too. he came up and said, "hey, so when are you going to play something good?" ouch.

i satisfied that costomer by playing "rockin robin", sung by a very young michael jackson. the dance floor was packed during that song. another reason for me to stand my ground that the king of pop was aptly-named. sure, he's a weirdo, but he's talented. i'm sure all those nice church ladies would have been shocked if they knew what they were dancing to, but since they didn't, they loved it. i rest my case.

i was sad that i didn't get to hang out during the reception. weddings are getting to be friend reunions for me, and i was bummed that i didn't have time to sit around and talk. i did have time to recap the score with vanessa... out of our five friends, she was supposed to be married first, then nicki, then rachel, then carmen, and then me, last. very last. so far it's been carmen, nicki, and rachel. vanessa says she'll end up last, but i'm not so sure. only time will tell.

i wouldn't mind being last. very last.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005

my sister is silly

just for fun, here's what i left on my away message on the night of the 24th...

"not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. which is funny, because my parents think we do have a mouse. we've had some mousetraps sitting on the counter for a while, but my sister won't let us kill the mouse until after christmas, so she can nestle all snug in her bed on christmas eve and think, "not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse." so yes, we're getting as much mileage out of this as we can.

merry christmas."

:) more updates on christmas later. it was a good one, though!

Saturday, December 24, 2005

christmas eve 2005

okay, now it's christmas. my grandparents are finally here, giving tracy college application advice, telling nick about home flu remedies, telling andy about the evils of video games, and looking up recipes for some kind of exotic breakfast food involving goat cheese and lettuce. so even though it's like 75 degrees outside and my brother can skateboard without a jacket (white christmas? dream on...), now it actually feels like christmas. i knew something was missing.

the pile of gifts under our christmas tree is amazing. is it always like that? if it weren't for the part of the tree that doesn't light up, it would look like a greeting card. hmm.... well, maybe between the faulty lights and my brothers' wrapping jobs if could be a norman rockwell painting, especially with our dog walking around looking all disgruntled that there are gifts covering his favorite chair. yup, definitely norman rockwell. of course, it helps that all our presents for my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousin are under there too.

meanwhile, my poor brother is sick as a dog and completely miserable. we're all trying to make him feel better, but he just doesn't want anything. the poor guy sits on the couch and stares at our mostly-lit christmas tree. he doesn't want to talk, he doesn't want to eat, he doesn't want to watch movies... he just wants to stare. actually, he said it might be easier to endure if he weren't the only one sick, but i'm not about to get the flu just to give him a comiserating buddy.

judging from his away messages, i think josh is really sick, too. but that's even worse, because he's in socorro all by himself. no family, no girlfriend, no friends.... no roommates, no teachers, no class... nothing. just him, sick, and the online courses he's trying to finish during the break. poor guy.

and now, even though i thought i was done, i need to go out and buy one more present. hopefully spiderman merchandising won't be too hard to find. merry christmas! :)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

fourth day of christmas?

here's some things that have been rolling around inside my head.

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how the grinch turned green- sometime between the original book and the animated cartoon, the grinch became green. in the book, the only two colors were black and red (for stockings, santa hats, and poor little max the dog's nose). the grinch looks quite a bit more hairy than the whos, but not at all more green. i wonder who picked out his color? maybe they made him green to "christmas-ify" his whole image, since he was already wearing red and all.

holiday jingle continuity?- yesterday i watched three commercials in a row that all had "deck the halls" playing in the background. i wonder if someone has the job of trying to make their product's holiday commercials stand out from the rest. i wonder when holiday commercials are made. is it months in advance? i wonder if someone takes a poll about which songs are used the most often. i wonder if anyone even thinks about it.

what's free time?- i'm a week into the break, and i still haven't even picked up a book yet. i stay up late talking to my sister or helping my brother finish his math homework, and then i'm too tired to start anything. lame! i have a long list of books to read, including harry potter 5 & 6, the latest ender's game addition, the count of monte cristo, and the zombie survival guide, which was a gift from jon and josh (they are so cool!). on top of that, i actually thought i'd have time to work on my novel. ha!

feeling compulsive?- i used to be very thrifty. i have even been known to "sleep on" purchases before i bought things. but the other day when i was christmas shopping with my brother, i saw another beatles jacket! it's gray and it has the let it be album cover on the back. sweet! gray's not my best color and we were supposed to be shopping for other people, but i still had to have it. i told nick that he could buy it for me or that i would buy it myself, but that i wasn't leaving the store without it. he told me that i was a bad shopper and to get a grip. as i pulled it off the rack, i saw a black t-shirt with the rubber soul album in it. that's not only my favorite beatles album, but the best rock record every written, in my opinion. i had to have that one too.

tunes- at the moment i'm listening to the narnia soundtrack, which i borrowed from my brother. he's into dramatic soundtracks because he writes his own music, but i like this one a lot because there's three or four credit songs, including a pretty cool one by alanis morissette. the kid's got good taste in music.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

finals week, part two

i had my mechatronics final on wednesday and my controls final on thursday. both were pretty rough, but i thought i did well. miller told us how much each question was worth, so i added as i went, trying to get an early idea of what my grade would be.

on thursday, i took all three hours to finish my test. i was the only student in there for about ten or fifteen minutes. when i handed in my test, miller asked how i did. i told him i thought i got at least an eighty. i was stoked! he said, "well, let's see!" and flipped the test open and started grading it right in front of me.

and it went something like this: "wrong... wrong... that one's wrong... that one's wrong...."

i couldn't believe it! i just spent three hours pouring myself into that badly-written multiple-choice test and he graded it in about one minute. and i did not get an eighty. he said something like, "well i guess you and i aren't on the same wavelength. i think you're thinking too hard." right. i almost cried.

instead, i stared packing up the several textbooks and notebooks i brought to the test. what a waste. but before could leave, miller said, "oh, and here's your mechatronics test from yesterday." i got a D. it was the lowest grade in the class.

which is kinda funny, because jon got the highest grade and josh got exactly average, and we all studied together.

i checked my grades today and i got Bs in both classes in spite of the bombed finals. so my GPA will be okay... thank goodness. miller told us all semester that grades are superfluous and what really matters is how much you learn. that's true i suppose, except that most employers won't even consider you unless you have at least a 3.5!

thank GOD this semester is over.

Friday, December 16, 2005

i have the best friends in the whole wide world. i love them so much!

Saturday, December 10, 2005

i'm a consumer whore

adam and i have a tradition the weekend before finals, the christmas-shopping-spree-weekend-in-albuquerque tradition. pretty self explainitory. i usually get most of my christmas shopping done during this time, but i like to concentrate on my friends at school first, since i won't be seeing them again until january and it's my last chance.

this year the shopping spree didn't start out so great. it didn't help that we both had papers to finish and my computer's trippin', so i was stressed out before we even left. we went to the christian bookstore, target, and old navy, and i was just buying random stuff! i didn't even know who i was going to give these things too. i was very, very frustrated.

there's something you have to understand about me. to me, giving people presents is a very serious thing. if i don't put a lot of thought (and usually, a lot of money) into a present, i feel like a lousy friend or a deadbeat sister. i hate giving people lame generic presents. it makes me feel like such a loser. i think i get that from my dad... he goes crazy at christmas.

so there i was, with over a hundred dollars worth of crap, and i still hadn't purchased very many presents that i was truely happy with. this year my family is shopping for my cousins in kentucky, and i was having a lot of trouble finding something cool for them! i love carmelita so much, and i couldn't find something good enough for her! and scott? alicia? my grandfather?forget it.

i was about to have a nervous breakdown. no kidding, i was so stressed out. then adam suggested we go to the world market, where they have a lot of cool stuff. okay.

it turned out to save the day. i found so many things for my friends and my family, it was awesome. i got alicia a ten-pack of beers from around the world and "monty python's holy grail ale". she'll love it. i got scott gummy band-aids and fudge mix, because i'm part of the fictional "society to teach scott cason how to cook." perfect. i got rachel some sexy candles and cow soap for her bridal shower tomorrow. i got carmen a pretty expensive, beautiful yoga mat with an embrodiered bag. i think she'll really like it. she's into yoga. i even found things for my granddad, who is impossible to shop for.

i spent over $170 in that store, which was a little more than i'd spent in the other three stores combined. adam's a little broke right now, and i think he thought i was crazy to spend so much. but i was so relieved! i exclaimed happily to adam and the cashier that i was no longer a bad person because i had spent copious amounts of money on the people i love. on the way home, i couldn't stop telling adam how i felt so much better. i kept thinking happily about all the costly merchanidise in the trunk and never once doubted that i did the right thing.

why is that? i don't feel good about myself until i've bought everyone i know at least three presents or spent at least twenty dollars, usually both. it occurs to me that that's not normal. one thing i've learned in the last couple years is that not everyone buys presents for all the people they know. i've been surprized to find out that some of my friends only buy their siblings one gift. that's unheard of to me. today i bought my little brother three presents, and i'm still not done.

well, consumer america should be very happy with me, one of their own daughters, who does her duty by spending her hard-earned dollars on material goods. if someone's been brainwashing me, josie and the pussycats-style, to buy things for my friends and family, i swallowed that one hook, line, and sinker.

i'm not sorry. i love them.

Friday, December 09, 2005

finals week

senior design presentations were last night, and my team did great! travis kind of read the slides and leroy seemed nervous, but casey was awesome! i think he realized he stank it up last time and practiced hard. one of our classmates even commented during the question-and-answer portion that we'd come a very long way since our last presentation, and our professor told us we did great. woo!

the funny thing about the conference last night was that the entire building was freezing. where i was sitting seemed to be even colder than the rest of the room, so while i was waiting to present, i was actually thinking more about how it might be warm up on the stage than i was about what i was supposed to be talking about. unfortunately, the stage turned out to be only slightly warmer than where i was sitting. i was standing there trying to look professional, shivering. i wasn't nervous until it occured to me that i was shaking and probably looked terrified. great...

but we appearently did very well, so now if i can be hardcore and work on our paper all weekend, we should do fine in that class. hopefully...

so miller gave me an 89 on my controls test. that really bugs me. i should have gotten an A! sure, it was the third-highest grade in the class (behind casey, who somehow pulled a 99, and josh, who got a 90), and yeah, i beat jon (albeit by one point), but i really could have used an A and i really deserved an A. he took off lots of points for bogus stuff. i tried to talk to him about my test, and he didn't give me any points back. i'm mad. now, even though i have done well on both tests and have a nearly perfect homework grade, it's going to be really hard for me to pull an A in the class because of my crappy quiz grade. i'm horrible at quizzes.

machine design is going to be cake. if i don't get an A in this class, i will be seriously surprised. civil won't be quite as easy as machine design, but i think it'll be fine. claudia told me and josh that we're doing great in the class and have nothing to worry about. i already know i have As in both of my labs. yay!

the big mystery here is mechatronics. i got a D on the first test (which was above average), and miller said he curved that test. but when he displayed the class distribution the other day, it didn't look like he had. hmm.... i have As on everything else in that class, so i don't know.

one paper, a few meetings, and four finals from now, i will be done with the most difficult semester i've had so far. hopefully next semester the acedemics won't be so horrid.

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

next semester

sometime my last post and class this morning, i realized how much this is going to suck.

so kc's going to live here with carmen and me until may, when she gets married. now, i've had a few friends get married, including a few roommates. when nicki got married, there was wedding and bridal paraphernalia everywhere. it's all she talked about for months, and she had an extremely short engagement. heck, carmen didn't even live with me when she got married and there were bridal magazines and half-finished lists on my bed, in my house, in my car...

i failed to realize that i'm going to be one of the first-hand witnesses, one of the people that sees all the planning stages. it's very likey that i'm going to know a lot more details about this wedding than i would like. hearing all about nicki's wedding for three months was pretty boring sometimes, but this is going to be torture.

i wonder if mike still wants the same things at his wedding that he talked about with me.

why is kc doing this to me? our rent isn't bad, but it's not cheap by socorro standards. she could find a pretty nice place for less and move out and save money, something that getting-married-people tend to want to do. everyone wins.

i don't want to get back at her. i just want her to leave me alone.

Monday, December 05, 2005

the plot thickens

so carmelita told me the happy news this morning. kc and mike are engaged.

i feel like i can talk about this on here because, to the best of my knowledge, no one at my school reads my blog or even knows where it is. not carmen, not adam, not josh, no one. in fact, the only people i know about that read this are a few family members (not including my parents), who for the most part don't know the people i'm talking about.

i'm less upset about this than you'd think. in fact, the day before i found out about their secret romance, i had a dream that they were engaged and asked me to come to their wedding and i told them no way. josh thinks that's cool. he thinks i'm psychic.

the circumstance of all this actually makes me feel a little better. these two have been dating a little under three months, and they are already planning to get married in may. you can't say that this lends them any credibility. in fact, it more or less proves that they aren't thinking things through and are doing whatever feels right. i mean, that's stupid. i kept my mouth (mostly) shut when jd got married after five months of knowing susan, but i could convince myself that once in a great while, those things could work out. now jd's best friend is following suit. that's a pretty big coincedence.

another thing i think about is, of course, the injustice of all this. while we were dating, i was was very aware of the time mike spent with kc, and very aware of that fact that she's taller and prettier and more sophisticated and mature than i am, but not once did i ask or gave him crap about it. nearly every time i hung out with adam, i got a fight and a guilt trip. and the whole time, it was really me who had something to worry about. now that's ironic. and then there's the whole insensitivity thing going on, like couldn't she move out before all this happened, or couldn't he even tell me the truth about any of this, or could they at least tell me anything? like i said, i found out from carmen, and it's been a few weeks already. they're jerks.

lastly, there's concern. not a whole lot, because the evil part of me hopes they make mistakes and learn a big ol' Harsh Lesson from this, but there is some. i mean, mike thought about it for over a year before he even asked me out. we went out for over a year and then broke up pretty much out of the blue. our pre-dating relationship is going to be longer than his and kc's dating relationship and engagement combined. mike is SO careful about the things he does, and he always considers everything over and over.... and over, until it's worn to death. this is beyond unusual for him.

add that to the fact that he let slip he was dating kc and let me find out from josh, he's been refusing to acknowledge my existance, he visited kc overnight at her house before they were going out, he lied to me about liking someone else... these are all things he told me with his own mouth that he would never ever do. these things are so out-of-character, they go against what i knew of him for almost three years. he's not acting like himself, and getting engaged while you're not acting like yourself is a bad, bad plan.

i still need to give mike a verbal butt-kicking for the way he's been treating me, and i need him to grow up and be a man and listen this time, instead of running away. but now, i don't know, should i throw in a little, "stop and think about what you're doing"? i don't know if it's my place. i mean, i know him really well, or at least i should. he told me that he wanted to be my friend and loved me like a sister. i don't buy that crap for a second, but what if i call him on his bluff and say, hey buddy, if you love me like a sister, you'd better listen up. you're acting weird. carmen told me a lot of other people at church are concerned, but i think i know mike much better than they do. should i say something?

and then there's kc. i think she's confused. i feel bad for her. yeah, she was mean and evil and cowardly, but i don't want her to suffer forever for it. most of the time i just wonder what the heck she's thinking. how can she go out with him when she knows how he treated me? that's beyond my comprehension. and now, how can she marry a guy when she knows he's acting weird? and honestly, a very big part of me thinks she still likes joel. heaven help her, you know, because he sucks on about the same level as mike, but my point is, she's confused. getting married when you're confused is not good either.

but i guess until i know what to do i'll be sitting here.

another season gone

the hockey scene this weekend was surprisingly boring, especially considering that all seven games were championships for the seven respective leagues. we've got the ten-year-olds, the twelve-year-olds, the fourteen-year-olds, the high schoolers, the old men, the old ladies, and finally, the adults. the only game that was close enough to be exciting was the under-ten game, which started twenty-five minutes late because of some mom trying to take team pictures. one thing you've got to understand about under-ten-year-olds is that hardly any of them can put on their gear. so before every game you hear an endless chorus of, "coach, can you tie this?" "mom, can you help me?" "coach, where's my other glove?"

so of course, once all the kids are finally dressed, camera mom lines them up and tells all twenty of them to take off their helmets so she can see their faces in the picture. "coach, can you help me?"

once the picture is snapped, all twenty helmets have to go back on. "coach, can you help me?"

the whole time i was sitting in the stat box pulling out my hair. the first game being late pushes back all the rest of the games for the entire day. freakin little kids.

anyway, my twelve-year-old buddy josh was playing goalie for the little kids, and sunshine, sparky and i made fun of him the whole time. the game ended in a 4-4 tie, meaning there was five minutes of sudden death. no one scored. then, as if the next game wasn't late enough, the refs declared a shoot-out, with josh playing goalie for both teams. josh was terrified and did really well, which is great for him but it meant the game never ended. about eighteen kids had already taken penalty shots and josh wasn't budging. i yelled at him to just let one in.

the first person to finally score on josh was none other than his angelic, blond-haired little sister, sarah. and she stuffed him. her very feminine "hooray!" after she scored probably only drove the insult home for josh, whose entire family was in the stands, mocking him. that was the highlight of the day for me, especially since it meant the first game was finally over.

like i said, the next five games weren't close enough to be exciting. saturday was the windiest day we've had all season, and to top it off the scoreboard was broken all day, meaning i was working with a stopwatch and a flip board. boring, boring, boring. no one even scored for me, even though sunshine ian got about ten goals. what a brat.

finally it was time for the adult game. my team consisted of myself, collin, clifton, rick, teague (thank GOD), and bean, our prodigal teammate. i was kinda bugged that he showed up after not playing all season.... but he's really good, so i didn't say anything. we played against my old friend kevin, peanut, leo, roger the tough guy, and javier was in net.

the game went well. they won, because they're a better team and i think they played harder. the score was 8-5, i think. it's true that teague let in a few sloppy goals, but i think the right team won.

more important than who won, at least to me, is that collin and i finally killed a penalty. all season long we have been the penalty-killing team, and every time we kill all but about ten seconds and then the other team scores. it's so depressing. but not this time! i think rick was the one who was called, and collin and i went out and told each other, "this is The One." collin worked so hard! he really is my hero. i feel like i finally proved i'm a worthy defenseman after that, especially since i played good defense in the rest of the game also. i stuffed peanut and roger a few times, and roger even congratulated me! funny.

after the puny awards ceremony, ray and the hugos and i went for soup, pizza, and beer at bountiful, where the three of them talked about ice hockey and tried to hook me up with the shady waiter. another season gone.

Thursday, December 01, 2005

can't touch this

miller assigned us a take-home controls test on tuesday that was due this morning. and you would be so proud of me, i started on it right away and worked hard. in fact, by the time i went to bed tuesday night, i had completed more than half of the problems and was feeling pretty good about myself.

unfortunately, i did the easy half of the test. or rather, since none of it was really easy, i left the impossible part for later. these were problems that miller had assigned homework on, but had not gone over in class. i haven't done that homework yet because i don't understand the procedure. so it makes a whole lot of sense that these things are on the test... riiiiight.

i worked on that test from about six until nine, when i had my leader's meeting, and then from ten until five-thirty a.m., no kidding. that's when josh and i finally gave up. i went home and got into bed, mostly because i was cold, and lay there thinking, "my test isn't done. my test isn't done. i could be working on my test right now. what if i don't wake up in time to finish?"

needless to say, i got zero sleep. i finally got up at 7:40 and worked on my test until class started at 9:30. that's a lot of hours for one test. i still wasn't happy with it when i turned it in. but guess what miller went over first thing in class? the material we needed to know before the test!

but more unusual than that? i think i actually did it right.

this immediately brought to mind visions of next tuesday, when miller will hand out the graded tests. "there was only one 'A'," he explains to the class, "a 98." of course the class begins to half-heartedly congratulate jon, as usual, until miller hands him his test... an 84! i, on the other hand, have a big red "98%, well done!" at the top of my fourteen-page baby.

so in my little day dream i stood up, turned to jon, threw my test down in front of him, and said, "u can't touch this!" and started doing the hammer shuffle across the room. at that point things in my head got a little silly, no doubt due to my sleepless night.

but let me tell you, i was doing a lot better than josh. that kid shuffled into class about five minutes before it was over, and man, did he look terrible! i guess he's not used to the all-nighter lifestyle since our materials lab ended. good times... :)

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