here is me and andy the cool.

amy and justin took tracy, andy and i to the boardwalk, also known as the "tourist beach", so we could at least see the ocean before we left. unfortunately, it was too dark to take a picture of the waves, but it was fun to see.

see what i mean about photogenic?

here's andy, taking advantage of a tourist beach photo op.

last pic of the day, me and my little sis.

Road Trip Day Seven

sorry for the delay... i had some trouble finding an internet connection. and then i had trouble finding the time, THE TIME!

i will now attempt to catch you up on the road trip situation.

on sunday we drove from richmond to virginia beach and had a fun family-reunion-type pizza party! my aunt carolyn, uncle paul, cousin amy, her boyfriend justin, my mom, brother, and grandmother were already in town. oddly enough, we didn't take any big group pictures of all the family together. but here are the shots for the day. i really missed my other brother!

these are my cousins, colette and lela! they both had to help me spell their names. tracy french-braided their hair, so i took a picture of them all dressed up. they are so fun!

... then colette took a picture of us.

3:00 p.m., just before the tunnel to virginia beach.

what a handsome, cute, hunky, photogenic little brother i have...

andy thought me how to skateboard! this is andy and amy, and that's justin in the distance.

andy and his new favorite person, justin.

my cousin amy playing with my little cousin lela. she was a sad because she broke something and thought she was in trouble, so amy was cheering her up.

Road Trip Day Six

true, right now is technically day seven, but i was up very late last night and didn't get a chance / forgot to post some pics. i'm not really that late.

yesterday was by far our most eventful trippin day. tracy and i took a state highway, thinking it would save us some time. the official speed limit was 55 mph, but the recommended speed around the twists and turns next to extremely high cliffs was about 15 mph. needless to say, we scared ourselves to death, saw quite a bit of rural west virgina, and didn't save any time at all. actually, we think we lost quite a bit. and with scenery that included antique tractors totally overgrown with vegitation, 2,000 ft drops, decades-behind towns, and "the mystery spot," we very loudly thanked GOD when we got back on the interstate. my sis plans on getting the poor AAA guy who suggested the idea fired. well, it was an adventure.

7:30 a.m., leaving Louisville, Kentucky. This is downtown.

Sometime around 12 noon, Charestown, West Virginia.

1:00 p.m., some cool West Virginia waterfalls in some small, undetermined town. We took state highway 60, thinking it was a shortcut. It was not, but we got some interesting pictures along the way.

Same time... we are still friends! And I think my sister's hair looks fabulous.

2:30 p.m., Mystery Hole, West Virginia. We were totally weirded out by this, by the way. It wasn't the "Mystery" part.... it was the "West Virginia" part.

4:00 p.m., Virginia/ West Virginia Border

7:00 p.m., richmond, virginia. visit uncle kevin, auntie jean, and two cousins!

Road Trip Days Four and Five

took a break from the trippin and did some crashin.... yesterday we were in louisville all day and didn't do anything really eventful, except go to dinner at kasmir, and indian restaurant that i can't say i particularly cared for. at any rate, i didn't take pictures.

today tracy and i drove to cambelsville, where she wants to go to college, and back to louisville. on the way we passed lincoln's birthplace and elizabethtown, which tracy likes because olrando bloom went there to film his new movie that's coming out. and she calls me a nerd...

overall, i think the two of us are holding up pretty well together, considering we have been in close company since sunday evening, and loose caompany since even before that. i DO think that she elaborates her stories a little bit for the family. hmm...

more later! bueno!

Road Trip Day Three: Louisville, Kentucky

i guess this part of the trip doesn't really count as "road", since we've been in louisville all day, but here are the day's pics anyway. my cousins are super fun, i love them so much!

12:00 noon, Bardstown Road

3:00 p.m., my cousins and my sister shopping

4:30 p.m., Du Pont Manuel High School, where my cousin attends (and it looks cool, too).

8:00 p.m., Katie's soccer practice

Road Trip Day Two

today tracy saw me writing down what time we went through every city and asked me what i was doing. i told her i was going to post pictures of the road trip online, along with what time we'd been there. she answered, "in other words, you're going to be a nerd about it."

ZING!

well, i guess i am being a nerd about it. i can't help it.

7:30 a.m. This picture speaks for itself. The coffee was horrible. :)

10:30 a.m., Rolla, Missouri. (Sign reads, "We pump it for you!")

1:00 p.m., St. Louis, Missouri.

2:45 p.m., Mount Vernon, Illinois. There wasn't a lot of awesome scenery, but Tracy's shoes were cool.

3:30 p.m., Indiana State Border.

6:30 p.m., Louisville, Kentucky, last stop of the day!

Road Trip Day One

here they are.... see you tomorrow! we should be in louisville by then.

6:00 a.m., Albuquerque, New Mexico

8:45 a.m., Amarillo, Texas

12:00 noon, Groom, Texas, the largest cross in the Western Hemisphere (we thought it was weird, too)

3:15 p.m., Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

5:45 p.m., Tulsa, Oklahoma.

ROOOOOAD TRIP!

tomorrow starts our road trip! my sister and i are driving across the country, from albuquerque to virginia beach. woo hoo....

no, i'm not really that excited. i think it will hit me when i'm actually in the car, on the road, with my music on and no work or people in my face. well, except for my sister. but i think we'll be okay.

i'll post pictures!

1 Samuel 17

45 Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
46 This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
47 And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands.
48 And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
49 And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.

where am i going with this? i want to have faith that GOD will save me before i know i can win. like i've posted before, true faith is faith in GOD's faithfulness.

"take heart, daughter, for i am faithful."

just for fun...

it won't happen again

about half of the tech campus is under construction right now. oddly enough, that's not much of an exaggeration. all the roof tiles and skylights were destroyed in the hailstorm, so every building has a fence around it and the parking lots are one by one being blocked off for the construction crews. cramer, the building next to the one i work in, is being entirely gutted and re-done from the inside out. a big new sub is being built in the middle of campus, and there's a new chiller plant being built on the other side. a normally-short walk is incredibly delayed by slowly making your way all the way around the many fenced-off areas.

on such a walk yesterday, pablo noticed that the fence around cramer had been opened up, and we walked inside and checked it out. we went upstairs to and walked on the shaky floor, parts of which had cracks through which the rooms below were visible. that was creepy. and the basement is being completely torn up. that was kind of cool.

and then we walked out, simple as that. or wait, maybe not, because there's a truck coming up behind us pretty fast, and as soon as i heard it, i thought, there's campus police. sure enough, someone had called the cops on us. what kind of loser did that?

nothing dramatic happened, i just smiled, apologized and said it wouldn't happen again. it's amazing how far that gets you with authority figures. the officer told us that he didn't want us getting hurt, and he didn't want to call our parents to tell them we were injured. i don't really think it's his job to notify the family, but i didn't argue. just smile, apologize, and say it won't happen again.

quote from adam

it's been a long time since adam has said something worthy of my quote book. but despite not contributing to the list in probably a year, he is still the most-quoted person in the book by a good margin. honestly, i think he has his own page. single-spaced. this next quote from good ol' adam will remind you why he has his own page. as with most of my quotes, keep in mind that this is taken grossly out of context and was meant to be completely innocent. enjoy!

Adam: "I can feel my pants igniting as we speak."

are you a cool kid?

so i helped out with freshman orientation today. oh my goodness, i was laughing the whole time.

poor kids. half of them won't make it, and they don't even know it. tech is a really tough school. but i'm not a sadist, that's not what i was laughing at.

it's the little freshmen! the little froshies with their witty t-shirts and their pretty jewelry and their preppy clothes and new backpacks and perfect makeup. oh, the little kids, most of them trying so, SO hard to be cool. some of them pulling the "i'm too cool to look around me" or the ever-present "this is a waste of my time." others had the attitude of "i'm the greatest person ever, come be my friend!" sadly, there were many that were scared to death. when i talked to them they couldn't even answer without panicking.

to be fair, there were a lot of kids at orientation that are actully, genuinely cool. i talked to several of them. the cool ones are the ones who realize that we, the helpers, really do know what we are talking about, and they can benifit from our help. i'm not saying that i'm the all-knowing goddess of the universe or anything, but i've actually been going to tech for three years and i know how it works. the cool kids aren't freaking out trying to make first impressions. and they look you in the eye. i love that. a lot of the cool kids were at the mechanical engineering table. coincedence? i think not.

i don't know if you're reading between the lines or not, but i'm actually thrilled that the freshmen are coming. i love meeting new people, even if they think they are too cool to be here. i love talking to new kids and finding out about their lives.

but some advice? freshmen, really. don't try to be cool. you're the coolest when you're just yourself, i promise. don't try to re-invent yourself. and don't, whatever you do, pull the "this is such a watse of my time" attitude. then people just think you're mean. you've got all of your college experience to make friends, don't try to rush it. you'll be fine.

sad song?

i don't about your house, but mine perpetually has way too many cars in front of it. waaaaaaay too many. yesterday, there were eight, count'em eight, vehicles in front of the house by the speed bump. the owners were me (yes, i have jules back, no more 15-passenger van!), kc, vanessa, rauni, kyle, nicki, johnny, and the white car that our land lords own and keep in the driveway. i was at home for a few hours, and i locked up when i left because no one else was there. no one was home, but there were still four cars in front, not including mine. you see, two people left in each car. that's when it hit me... everyone had a friend but me. rauni and her boyfriend kyle took his car, nicki and her fiance johnny took her car, and kc went with her best friend vanessa.

if this was a poor-me movie or a music video about loneliness, that would have been really sad. but i was okay, it was just a funny thing to realize. well, keep reading.

down the road i passed the house where my friends james and teresa live. and they were outside, in front, checking out james' car. i waved.

then i passed josh and kat's apartment. they weren't outside or anything, but i was in everybody-has-somebody mode, so i thought of them anyway. i was thinking, what could make this story more ironic? is pablo going to come around the corner with his girlfriend and their son and their neighbors?

and that's exactly what happened, i swear, i'm not lying. i saw a guy on a bike, with one of those kiddie trailers that the babies ride in, and i realized it was him almost as soon as i had that thought. right behind him were his girlfriend and their neighbors. to top all of this off, i was on my way to carmelita and steve's house, my two friends that just got married early this month. well.

i think this story has been a music video. doesn't it sound familiar? what a sad song playing in the background!

but like i said, for me, the story was much more bizarre than sad. like jack says, i'm alone but i'm not lonely, not anymore.

I'M HAPPY!!!!!

Isaiah 24:14

They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's majesty.

fear

here's what was keeping me awake last night.

have you ever thought about what fear does to people? it's almost like a drug, because it impares a person's thinking and makes everything seem worse than it really is. sometimes, it can completely incapacitate someone. i remember once when i was about ten, i was summer camp and we had gone to play at this waterfall that ran out of a cool cave. the kids were climbing all over it. i was climbing down onto a little platform and all of a sudden i felt like i was way too close to the edge. i wasn't, and even if i had been, even if i had fallen, i would have landed in the water and been just fine. there were kids right next to me jumping off the rocks into the pool below. but i was so scared i couldn't move. i didn't move at all for what seemed like forever. one kid noticed i was scared and tried to help me, but i wasn't wouldn't take his hand because i was afraid to move. the counsellors finally noticed that i hadn't budged and came to "rescue" me. i was fine the whole time, but i had nightmares about that for years.

consider a woman and a spider. i know that not all women are afraid of spiders, but my mom sure is. especially when i was little, if she saw a spider, she would go crazy- screaming, jumping around, maybe running away, and yelling for my dad. i know everyone says the spider is more afraid of the person, but think about it. most of the spiders in my house were wolf spiders and were harmless. they always died, too, once my mom knew they were there. they had a lot more to be afraid of than she did. but because my mom was afraid, it effectively made her useless, just like i was useless on that waterfall.

why are people afraid of spiders? is it because they can bite? i personally think it's the eight legs that creep most people out. but why is that scary?

why is anything scary?

what are you afraid of? for me, it's broken glass. it scares me because when it's really sharp, it can cut your skin and you can't even feel it. it just splits you open. i still have nightmares about big, jagged sheets of glass with blood on them cutting into people. i hate watching it in movies. i think it scares me because you can't feel it and you can't do anything about it. so maybe that's it? that it makes people helpless? i'm afraid of being helpless? but sometimes fear makes me helpless. that doesn't make sense.

i'm afraid of zombies, too. yes, i know zombies aren't real, but i used to lay awake at night because i was terrified of them. why? i think it's the same reason. if a zombie bites you, you turn into a zombie, and there's nothing you can do about it. i'm afraid of things that make me helpless. it's an oxymoron.

think about movies, where the girl is helpless to fight off the bad guy because she's so scared she practically peeing her pants. in thriller movies, the characters are usually clinging to each other because they are so terrified. fear doesn't make sense. it reduces people to helpless, illogical little children.

FDR said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. when i was little i always thought that was a dumb quote. i thought, of course there are things to fear. that president, whoever he was, didn't know anything. but it's so true! fear makes everything worse, and in most cases, it makes the scary thing impossible to fight.

so what are you afraid of? think about it. why does it scare you?

of all the bloody luck

you will not believe what i just heard on the radio.

first, let me tell those of you who don't know, i'm a huge beatles fan. i found out a few months ago that paul mccartney is touring the US again, and he will be in phoenix the day before my birthday. he will be in las vegas the day after my birthday. i want to go very badly. i think i would give up one of my kidneys to go to that concert. the good tickets are around $2000, so i don't think it's going to happen. i was telling all this to my dad, and he said, "well, all you have to do is win some tickets." yeah, sure dad. that's all i have to do.

so here i am at work, listening to the radio. the dj is saying, call in and be a big winner! here's the question: where is paul mccartney (and here my ears perk up like a little cartoon kid who hears "candy") opening his US tour?

now i happen to know that it's miami. i all but shout to pablo, who is sitting right next to me, "I KNOW THIS ONE!" and he immediately opens his phone and tries calling the station. good ol' pablo. but we don't get through.

who does get through? mike somebody from someplace.

"okay, mike, you have a chance to be our big winner! tell us, mike, in what city will paul mccartney open his US tour?"

and mike says london. LONDON!

the dj laughs and answers, "no, mike. his US tour. in the united states."

mike says, "oh, whoops! that was dumb..." or something like that.

dj says, "oh that's okay, mike, we'll give you another chance. here's a hint: the city is in florida."

mike says, "miami?"

and as far as i can tell, won tickets to the thing. of course, the entire time i was about to pull out all my hair. this guy doesn't even know what a US tour is! i could have told that dj so many facts about paul mccartney or the beatles or anything else!

why, why, why?

but break, my heart

sometimes you’ve got to wonder about the wisdom of ol’ bill shakespeare. take young prince hamlet, for example. in his first soliloquy, hamlet describes all the torment he’s going through; his father died, his uncle married his mom, and he feels like his family is falling apart. he ends with the ever-famous, “but break, my heart, for i must hold my tongue.” in this case, it seems that bill is saying that it’s better to keep your mouth shut and suffer than let your emotions out. i’d have to disagree. from experience, my friend.

i’ve found myself in a similar situation as hamlet. no, my mom and my uncle will certainly never get married, and my dad has not been murdered, thank heaven, but i am faced with the decision to either call someone up and maybe feel a little bit better, or keep quiet and let my heart keep breaking. the keeping quiet carries even further, since whenever someone asks me how i'm doing i answer, "i'm fine" or "pretty good" or even "not bad. " so far, i’m holding my tongue like a pro, just as shakespeare suggests.

but how long is this going to keep up? i've gone from seeing or talking to the same person every day, several times a day, to absolutely no contact at all for five weeks now. it's a huge change. it's like not having a house anymore. it's like i don’t have anywhere to go at the end of the day. it sucks a lot more than i could ever describe.

i would much rather loose my tongue than break my heart. i don’t know what shakespeare was getting at, but having a broken heart is one of the worst experiences ever. EVER. but that’s exactly what i have to endure in this situation. i know he doesn’t want to hear from me, so, paraphrased, i tell myself:

“but break, my heart;
suffer, my soul;
lie, my mouth;
hide, my face;
for i must hold everything inside.”

sorry if i got a little poetic on you. thinking about shakespeare and love will do that to a person.

YES, I LOVE YOU!

for some time now i've been trying to choose between the yes and the moody blues for my second-favorite band. and my first favorite, you ask? you obviously haven't seen my bedroom. i don't have time to count the beatles pictures on my walls. but anyway, i always put off the second-favorite decision by claiming i couldn't choose until i'd seen them both in concert, and i'd only seen yes. as of last night, that is no longer the case. uh.

i saw the moody blues last night, in concert at the sandia casino, the same place i saw yes. it was awesome. i'm so glad i went, even though i had to go by myself. i had begged josh to go with me, but he thought it would be boring (thanks a lot). but i ran into tony while i was there! i was really glad to see him. he said i was a hardcore fan for going alone. i bet him two cents that they would end with "i'm just a singer in a rock & roll band", but i lost, because they played it early. when they did, the guy next to me, who was at least in his sixties (his wife was 58) started jumping up and down and SCREAMING "rock and roll! rock and roll!" it was so cool. i started jamming out with him. people are great. there was a whole family in front of me, and when they saw that i was having fun and cheering and stuff, they gave me a glow stick to wave like a faux lighter. cool!

after "i'm just a singer" they played "nights in white satin", which was probably the high point for me. it was great when everyone in the crowd sang along, "YES I LOVE YOU!" so much fun. they ended with "the question", which is one of my favorites, and then played "ride my see-saw" as an encore. they didn't play my favorite moody blues song, "you and me", but that was okay. like so many of my favorite songs, it's not one of the bands greatest hits. oh well. the concert was great.

but at the end, here i am with this decision to make. i can officially say, now that i can consider the concert possibilities, that yes is my second favorite band. the moody blues will have to settle for third.

but the concert was great!

you call him MR. SPIDER, sir

last night i went to see star wars again with josh. i can safely say, now that i've seen it twice, that i loved it. it's great. i think it was better the second time, because the whole darth vader/frankenstein thing didn't freak me out, and i knew when the cheesy lines where coming. it's not happy enough to just watch all the time, but it's great. i'd like to own it some day.

after the movie josh dropped me off at my house. he gave me a ride because i'm still driving my mom's fifteen-passenger van, and parking that at the local theatre is just a bad idea. like a gentleman, josh waited in the driveway until i got into the house, and i'm sure glad he did. i've grown accustomed to our really bright porch light attracting all manner of nocturnal bugs that hang around our door, but this was different. this was the biggest non-tarantula spider i've ever seen, no kidding, and it was chillin right below the doorknob. it was so big that it looked like it could jump on me from twelve feet away and kill me with a single bite. i think it had a concealed weapon somewhere on it's person. i turned right around and told josh that i wasn't going near it.

understand something here... i'm not really afraid of spiders. unlike my mother, i can watch the radioactive bite scene in spiderman without freaking out. i can usually kill them no problem, but this one was really, really big. that thing could bend steel bars. and anyway, i was wearing flip flops.

if josh hadn't been there, i would have had to just suck it up and startle the thing myself. but i'm sure glad he was there to scare it for me. he says he thinks it was a wolf spider and probably wasn't poisonous. whatever. i've never seen a wolf spider that big.

i had no idea i was such a damsel.

somebody to love

today carmelita came back from her honeymoon. i'm really glad she's home because i missed her a lot, and you have no idea how many times last week i almost called her and then reconsidered because i knew she was out on her romantic dream trip to disneyworld. she told me today that it wouldn't have mattered even if i had called... her phone was off the whole time. smart little girl, that one.

anyway, one of the main reasons i'm glad she's home is because she's curing me from a perpetual case of song-in-the-head syndrome. i've had queen's "somebody to love" running through my thoughts for several days now, and it's a lot worse when you don't know all the words to the song you can't shake. so i went over to carmen's today and she loaned me her husband's (that's weird) 2-disk set, full of 34 of queen's greatest hits. i've listened to track ten on disk one about seven times since then, and i think it's getting a little better.

my little sis was passing through town on her way to albuquerque, so she stopped to have lunch with us. she showed us what my dad bought her for her birthday yesterday... a very, very nice acoustic guitar that she calls samson. her other guitar, an electric one, is named guinevere. steve said that girls are weird because we name everything. well, he's right. and my sis has a purty new guitar.

queen rocks. once i asked my psychology teacher why a person could get songs stuck in his head, and he said that no one knows. if you know, please tell me.

i'd say so! :)

Your element is Light: Innocent, beautiful, kind-hearted and pure. You are so sweet your almost angelic, you find joy in others happiness and cannot stand to see anyone in pain. You want to make everyone around you feel good about themselves and if someone is upset you can tend to become rather upset as well which means you are sympathetic and raise others above yourself. Being as kind and good-natured as you are people have most likely hurt you in the past but you pick yourself up every time. You may look fragile but you are stronger than most tend to see. Life is beautiful no matter how you look at it and you understand that people make mistakes, not everyone is perfect. You try to see the good in the bad which is a talent few posses, dont ever let anyone change you. You truly have a beautiful soul inside and a heart of gold.

i agree

Orange is your Lightsaber color.
Orange represents energy and enthusiasm. It also
symbolizes strength and endurance. People with
orange lightsabers are curious about life, and
the world around them. Fascination catches them
at every turn, and they are creative enough to
understand life's potential.

What Colored Lightsaber Would You Have?
brought to you by No comments:

happy birthday, alex!

a few weeks ago was my cousin's first birthday party, and i got some great pictures of my family. here are only a few. my aunt and uncle are two of the most fun people i know, and they provided funny party hats for us all to wear... and there were a lot of us, since the kid really is a cutie.

this is me and my three favorite people, my brothers and my sister! sorry that it's a little blurry, there was a lot going on, and richie, the photographer in this case, maybe got distracted?

i'm the one in the top hat.

this is my cute little cousin, alex. i took pictures of him for like fifteen minutes, and i got ONE good one where he is cute and smiling and has cake on his face. everyone should have a picture of themselves with cake all over their face from that birthday number one.

and these are my adorable little brothers. sure, one of them is a lot bigger than i am, but he's still my little bro. don't they look smart?

boring!

bored? give this a click.

(it's nothing bad, i promise.)

easy as 1, 2, 3!

now that my brother is out of class for the summer, he's gotten into those 'get to know your friends' emails. most of them are annoying, and ask questions like "what color socks are you wearing right now?", but here's one that is actually interesting (and these are my answers, not his).


A - Age you got your first kiss: 20, and i'm starting to think maybe that was too young.

B - Band listening to right now: THE BEATLES!

C - Comeback(favorite): i don't really have any good ones, except maybe, "what is this 'we', white man?"

D - Dorkiest habit: i'm addicted to gilmore girls. but that's really the only tv i watch, i swear!

E - Easiest person to talk to: scuba steve! or anybody really, i'm a social person.

F - Favorite band at the moment? THE BEATLES! and what is this "at the moment", white man? ;)

G - Gummy worms or gummy bears? bears. but i'll eat the worms, no problem!

H – Hometown: las cruces, new mexico

I - Instruments: kazoo!

J - Joke (favorite): this one's great! if you don't get it right away, just give it some time.

so there's these two goldfish sitting in a tank. one goldfish turns to the other and says, "okay, you drive, i'll do the guns."

ha ha ha!

K - Kids: none yet, but the girls will be named sofia and lucie, and the boys will be named jason, gabriel, christian, and luke

L - Longest car ride ever: lac cruces to virginia beach

M - Most embarrassing moment: when i was on crutches for my sprained ankle at the NMSU campus and it was raining and i slipped on the tile and my crutches went flying and i fell flat on my back and i made a whole lot of noise and disturbed all the classes and then everyone laughed at me instead of helping me up and all i could do was sit there. sniff...

N - Nicknames: sugar boogar (little brother), erer (sister), sister sue (big brother), hollypolly (everyone else)

O - One wish: i wish i had a red biplane! or a yellow sea plane!

P - Phobia[s]: skunks, zombies, and broken glass. and the dark, if i think it might contain any of the above.

Q - Quote: "when you come to a fork in the road, take it." -yogi berra. that cracks me up.

R - Reason to smile: because almost everything's funny, especially in retrospect

S - Song you sang last: "You've got to Hide Your Love Away"... by THE BEATLES!

T - Time you woke up [today]: ten til six. almost an hour and a halfafter my roomie's alarm went off at 4:30. that woke me up, too, but idon't know if that counts.

U - Unknown fact about me: i'm a morning person. even at 4:30.

V - Vegetable (or fruit mistaken for a vegetable) you hate: artichoke hearts. celery and avocados are usually gross too.

W - Worst habit(s): i'm very territorial. and i might be an intellectual snob. but are those really habits? hmm...

X - X-rays you've had: left foot, both wrists, inside my belly, both ankles, and teeth.

Y - Yummy food: i'm eating m&ms right now. i joined the jedi, because i chose milk chocolate instead of dark chocolate. i don't usually fallfor the marketing schemes, but this one was fun. go jedi!

Z - Zodiac sign: Sagittarius, but i don't follow that stuff very closely.

the adventure

man, working by yourself is hard! i told adam yesterday that i was so bored i was ready to take a drill to my head. i was mostly joking. thank GOD pablo's coming back this afternoon.

last week i was talking on aim to my good friend and study buddy jon. i told him i was really bored and i wished i had a plane. the next weekend jon was in town from burkey and hung out with josh, but i didn't get to see him because i was at the wedding (see yesterday's post :) ). well, jon left a present for me at josh's house. i was super excited because i love getting and giving presents, but josh wouldn't tell me what it was. he did tell me he was jealous though. then i knew... it was a plane.

sure enough, josh handed me a little box with a tiny motorized plane inside. it was yellow! it was pretty! and styrofoam! i named him benny. i loved it! now jon's automatically on my top ten list of favorite people in the world, because i love airplanes. he found the key to my heart.

josh and i put the plane together, but stupid me put the wings on backwards so the plane tilts down instead of up. the adhesive was really strong and i couldn't get the wings off, but josh told me it would probably work anyway. we jumped josh's back fence, which was difficult, since there was a big drop on the other side. josh has a little park behind his backyard, and it was the perfect place for benny's maiden voyage. having the wings on backward worked okaaaay... he was just flying low instead of high. but being the engineers we are, we wanted to fix it.

we went back to josh's house (by way of the fence) and sawed the wings in half and turned them around and glued them back together and added some toothpicks for reinforcement. when we were done poor benny looked ghetto, and i was terrified that his flying days were over. we'd already broken one of his propellers. we jumped the fence again and crossed all our fingers and blew on the plane for good luck. i tossed him up.... and he flew! he kept going higher and higher, and josh and i were so excited, we were like little ten-year-olds, jumping up and down and cheering. it was lovely.

that lasted about twelve seconds.

benny stopped flying in circles and flew clear across the park and over someone else's wall and straight into a tree. a pissed-off bird flew out of the tree and gave us a dark look, but that was the least of our worries. the people at the house weren't home. their back wall was about eight feet tall, and unlike josh's fence, impossible to climb. we could see that benny had lodged himself about twenty-five feet off the ground in a locust tree, right over a really tall shed. josh gave me a boost and i got on top of the eight foot wall. i was hitting the tree branch with a stick, hoping benny would fall out. that wasn't working, and even if it had, we would have to get him out of the yard, and i couldn't climb the fence by myself.

josh told me to jump to the shed. i told him to get real. he handed me a board, thinking that it would reach from the fence to the shed, which it certainly didn't. however, it did reach from the fence to a grape vine lattice, the top of which was about seven feet off the ground. i shuffled to the lattice, which kinda freaked josh out, because as far as he knew i was walking on thin air. from the lattice i could reach the shed. josh told me where to look and i found poor benny, with another broken propeller and a beat-up nose. i tossed the plane to josh, who missed it, the oaf, and they both disappeared behind the wall. i called, "is it okay?" josh answered, "ummmm...... yeah....." i knew he was lying.

getting off the shed was a lot harder than getting on. i had to stretch to reach the board with my foot, and josh had to hang onto the other side so it wouldn't flip and dump me into the yard. finally though, i was back on the fence again, and josh helped me down. benny's tail fin and back wing had broken when josh dropped him. ever the optimist, josh promised it would still fly. we charged the plane and let it go and it went straight into the ground. it reminded me of one of rachel's gutterballs. poor benny!

well, if jon's goal was to get rid of boredom, he certainly did that. big adventure, daring rescue, heights, and i actually didn't mention the dogs, but there were dogs. poor little benny is on the desk in our front hall now, waiting for the day when we fix him up so he can relive his twelve seconds of soaring glory.

well, hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work i go. may your adventures be sweet.

The Wedding

well, everyone, it's just me today. no pablo, no dr. ghosh, just yours truly, sitting here at work wondering what she is supposed to be working on and hoping the day goes by quickly. and by day i mean seven in the morning to seven at night. it's true, it's not as long as the fourteen or fifteen hour days i used to work when i kept stats for the hockey league, but these twelve hour days are supposed to be every day. pablo and i and supposed to pull in sixty hours a week. it's harder than it sounds.

but i didn't start this to complain about my job (there is much to complain about, but i am thankful for it). i wrote this morning to tell you that my little carmelita, my best techie girlfriend, got married on saturday. and i cried!

on thursday night we had the bachelorette party, and carmen, rachel, vanessa, and my sister and i dressed up in silly prom dresses and mardi gras beads and broaches and fake flowers and silly hats and cat ears and tiaras. oh, and sneakers. those were mandatory. we went out to eat at the restaurant where my brother is a chef (impressed, girls?), bountiful bakery, and then went and had a scavenger hunt at the mall. then bowling, coffee, and the karaoke bar! we all sang, but carmelita showed us all up with "material girl." it was even funnier for her to sing it, since the whole bar knew she was the bride-to-be. i was really glad that no one came up and did anything inappropriate, like give her a lap dance or anything like that. one guy did come and hit on rachel... but he left before the rest of us got too defensive.

after the party in cruces we headed to alamogordo to decorate the church and the reception hall and meet with the guys. we had a lot more fun than they did at the bachelor party! ha ha! the guys were a lot of fun though! the groomsmen were jd, harley, and micah, and cody the camera guy was hanging out the whole time, getting everything on film. he was my favorite! he's funny.

we all stayed in the same hotel, so it felt like high school again, like we were all on a club trip, but this time there were no chaparones and we could stay up all night and now we're over 21, so we could drink. we bought alcohol and played mafia. i didn't drink very much at all because i really don't like the taste of alcohol, and i certainly didn't get drunk. i mostly drank a few cream sodas with cody, who is eighteen. but playing mafia when most of the people present have a buzz is funny! conversations went something like:

"i think rachel's in the mafia."

"why?"

"because she's drinking!" (ridiculous laughter)

"rachel? what do you have to say for yourself?"

"i'm not in the mafia! i'm a happy drunk, not a mean drunk!" (more laughter)

the next morning carmen woke us up at dawn to go get beautiful. the makeup and hair ladies went to town on us. one of the first things that happened was that somehow everyone found out that i don't know what moisturizer looks like. that very quickly turned into "holly doesn't know anything about beauty or makeup." so, everyone felt the need to primp me and practically put on my clothes and explain to me what mascara is for and especially to tie the stupid bow on the front on my dress. everyone thought that it couldn't be right because they assumed i had tied it, which i hadn't, but they came along and tied it for me anyway. once, vanessa tied it and half an hour later or so told me she had to fix it, when she was the last person that had tied it!

i was wearing so much makeup and bronzer and had a loopy hairdo that is so not like my usual ponytail. and i wasn't wearing my glasses, which have fairly thick rims and are very noticeable. nicki, my own roommate, didn't recognize me. scuba and curtis had some real trouble recognizing me. the worst part was that everyone was making such a big deal out of it! i hated it. i was really miserable. but i had to suck it up, like a good maid of honor, and concentrate on carmen. i like her.

rachel and vanessa and i sang going to the chapel for her before the processional. carmen was beautiful! she was so sparkly! i really tried not to cry during the ceremony, and micah said i was making faces trying to hold back the tears. well, the good thing is that everyone could SEE me making faces, since my features were so well highlighted. blast that bloody makeup.

the reception was a great time and we all danced and had fun. we saw carmen and steve off at about seven. steve, if you remember from last summer, is the king of too much information. the girls were teasing carmen, saying that we were going to call her in about three hours and ask what she was doing. she said, "i'll just give the phone to steve." that put an end to our plans.

what a pretty wedding! it's a lot more fun when it's three days long and you can hang out with the groomsmen and go to white sands and bring all your silly hats. oh, and i had my mom's 15-passenger van, so i could drive everybody around. i was the cool kid. woo!

who can guess?

here's the songs that are stuck in my head.

"Think of Me" from Phantom of the Opera

"Drive" by the Cars

"Ugly Day" by Five Iron Frenzy

and "Places" by the Beatles.

so, who can guess what's been going on with me for the last month?

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

i saw it on thursday, opening night, a whole fifteen hours after my little brother and sister saw it at the midnight premere in las cruces, the lucky little brats. my brother took his lightsaber. he's such a dork, and i'm so jealous.

so... it's a little premature, since i've only seen it once, but, umm.... can i dare say that i LOVED it?

i was sitting next to my friend alex, who was the only other star wars geek in our party of eight, and there were several times where he and i turned to each other and whispered "that was so cool!" sure, there were the physical impossibilities and a few character descisions that made little sense, but i was wowed, and that was the point, right? to wow the audience?

i'll list the bad things first. by the way, i'm not making any effort to leave you the surprizes, so if you don't want to know, quit reading!
1. they killed count duku in the first maybe fifteen minutes, and it was not a big deal to anyone. okay... he was virtually undefeatable in the last film. alex suggested that he was out of practice from being a war big-wig.
2. i really thought anakin would freak out a little more when he was turning to the dark side.
as far as i could tell, he said, "what have i done," and shed a single tear, which was powerful, but that was it! he never seemed to think about it after that. his character was a little hard to believe. why didn't he see that the emperor was lying to him? it should have been obvious after he killed mace windu. why didn't he step back and see the big picture?
3. pastor coleman pointed this one out... why does general greivous have his human heart? the heart is one of the least reliable organs AND one of the easiest to replace... holding onto your human brain makes sense... but why your heart?
4. darth vader's "nnnnoooooooooooooo!" at the very end was even more painful than luke's in episode V. and what was up with his voice? alex and i agreed that it sounded different... and lame.

now the good things! or at least the big ones.
1. the psychic connection that anakin and padme had goin on when she was at her house and he was in the jedi temple was totally cool! my brother didn't recognize what it was, he thought it was just kind of a slow boring romantic part (he's such a guy), but it's the same thing that luke and darth vader have later, where they can talk across the voids and all. it was so intense, too! i was holding my breath.
2. anakin getting almost dead was wicked intense. it was so good! why weren't they all rated pg13? it was actaully believable and emotional, and, even on other director's standards, powerful.
3. the emperor was cool! he was deceptive and really evil, much more so than his Episode VI counterpart. i didn't get the wrinkle thing... but wow.
4. the special effects, while a little show-offish, were great. thankfully, there were only a few times the IL&M ego took over at the expence of the story (that flower-covered planet that was only shown for a minute comes to mind), but the visuals were never boring.
5. the last montage of sceens showing leia and luke in their respective new homes with their respective musical themes was awesome. this was one of the times alex and i were slightly hyperventelating.

of course, there were others. i can't remember/can't do justice to some of the other good and bad moments, and then there were just shocking moments that can't really be considered "good" because they were morally scandalizing, but were very well-done and really involved the viewer in the story. examples? cute little jedi kids looking to anakin for help, him activating his lightsaber to kill them. obi wan's shouted goodbye speech to a burning-alive anakin. clone leaders across the galaxy carrying out "order 66" and slaughtering jedi.

i'm not sure what i think about the suggestions that this is the best of the entire star wars film saga. like i said, i've only seen it once (which doesn't hold true for my geeky little brother who may have actually seen it twice before i even saw it once), but i'll keep you posted. i was definitely not dissapointed. go see it!

geek?

my car has a hole in the muffler. it makes a sound now that's a little hard to describe... or at least it was until i watched Episode I: The Phantom Menace tonight with scuba and patric. my car sounds like the engines on sebulba's pod racer.

don't laugh at me!

"you're almost there"

i went to the chinese restaurant with nicole on friday... that's what her fortune said. "you're almost there." it's almost spooky, seeing how she is graduating on saturday. i, of course, didn't get a fortune at all, but a proverb. you know, one of those fortunes that say "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush" or somthing lame like that. those make me so mad! it's such a dissapointment. i hate porverb cookies.

but if i had picked the other cookie and read nicki's fortune, it would have applied to me to. this week i have three more tests and one more paper, and then i am done for the whole summer! i'm so excited! i haven't had a proper break from school since last last summer, and boy do i need it. this summer i'm going to be working with dr. ghosh (that's right, my statics/economincs teacher) and pablo on a research project that sounds really cool. we're making a replica of a human skull for harminic testing and so on... i'm so jazzed. it's a twelve-week assignment, but dr. ghosh doesn't want to be in socorro that long, so he wants us to work like sixty hours a week for eight weeks and then he'll give us a month off. yay!

this semester i got advanced strength, heat & mass transfer, science and literature, manufacturing, and solid & fluid mechanics lab under my belt, plus the second semester of junior design. i love listing everything out like that. it makes me feel like i've been working hard.

but getting back to the cookies... if i were a fortune-writer (and somebody has that job, the lucky shmuck), i think every once in a while i would throw in something like "you're going to heaven" or "don't be nervous, he doesn't know yet" or "don't do it!" or "blame it on the boogie." i would have a lot of fun. i would never put in proverbs. dang it! i always get proverb cookies!

too bad i can't give free samples

i love music. i would love to be a music critic... i guess you would have to take all kinds of music theory classes to do so, so perhaps i'm not as qualified as i pretend to be, but i know what i like. i would really like to be a movie critic, too, but if you gave me the choice of watching a movie or listening to music, i think i would pick the listening. why i'm studying machanical engineering is beyond me.

here's what i'm listening to now:

Brainwashed- George Harrison
i really don't think i'm biased on this one. i don't like it just because i love the beatles or because george's son dhani produced it and does backup vocals and guitar in most of the songs and he's absolutely gorgeous. mike modano is out. dhani harrison is my new celebrity dream guy.

but seriously, the album is excellent. george's voice changed a bit and i think he sounds like Dylan, but the music style is different. he's not big on bass, so most of the songs either have a minimal bassline or none at all. and of course geogre was really into indian music, and he incorporates that into the album. you'll hear unsusal instruments like a sitar or wurlitzer. but then there's a lot of ukelele, too. that's so cool. i wish i could play the ukelele.

most of the songs are upbeat, especially Any Road, the first on the album. my other favorites are Marwa Blues, which is instrumental, Rising Sun, just as upbeat but more intense, and george's cover of The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. i really like all of them except Rocjking Chair in Hawaii. i've discovered that this album is great driving music.

Greatest Hits- The Cars
speaking of good driving music (no joke intended)....
i am SO into the cars right now. if you think you've never heard of them, you'd probably recognize a few of their songs, even if you don't know their name. love their music. it's just so happy and cool and fun! it's not so fun for nicki, who claims she hates 80's music (how we're roommates is beyond me sometimes). being true 80's music, it's full of synthesizers and keyboard. most of it is upbeat and, unlike Brainwashed, easy to dance to. is there a word for that? groovable?

my favorites are Let's Go, Best Friends Girl, Just What I Needed, Since You're Gone, and, of course, Shake it Up. But really, they're all great.


i'm also into hula music right now. it's in my cd alarm clock. waking up to hula is nice. :)

pictures of spring!

happy back-from-spring-break, everyone! i really, really, REALLY should start studying for the test i have at 8am tomorrow morning, but hey... how could i resist sharing these pictures of my trip?

seattle and victoria were so nice and beautiful and chill. i think it's quite close to one of the best trips i've ever taken. it didn't rain the whole time we were there, which is funny, because the rest of these suckers who stayed in new mexico got like three feet of snow. it made national news. ha, ha!

one thing about seattle is the daffodils... they're everywhere! and since they're everywhere, they're not expensive. you can buy a whole bouquet of them for like five dollars. the whole place was so pretty. i want to live there. on second street. :)

this is a huge fountain near the space needle. mike tried to outsmart it and got soaked! poor guy, he was kind of cold for the rest of the day. we were lucky the weather was so nice, though.

space needle, night and day.

these are two very famous buildings in victoria, british columbia.

and THIS is john lennon's rolls royce. it was at the royal british columbian museum, and i touched it! i wasn't supposed to, but i did! and i'm not sorry!

SPRING!

today is spring break friday for us! i'm lucky because none of my teachers gave me any brainwork today, but some of my friends (including mike) had two tests today! that's mean. poor kids. midterms has been kind to me so far... the first week back is going to be brutal though. for a four-day week it's pretty packed. i think i have three tests, two lab write-ups, four homework sets, a quiz, and two classes that are starting for the second half of the semester. we'll see if i survive.

tonight, right after work, i'm going to las cruces to visit my brothers and borrow some clothes from my sister, but primarily to get my birth certificate.... so i can go to CANADA!

(no, i don't HAVE to have it to cross the border, but if i have any problems it's proof of citizenship.) mike and i are going to seattle, washington and victoria, british columbia next week. i'm totally jazzed. i wanted to go to vancouver, but everyone i've talked to says that victoria is just way nicer. plus, there are less tourists. and it's not too bad this time of year! it's probably not as great as new mexico... this week it's been like 70 degrees outside with sunshine and nice breezes and we have flowers and pink trees already. i love pink trees.

and how am i getting to seattle, you ask? well, my dad is an IT specialist, so he flies to a major US city every week. i call him and he says, "hi, i'm in baton rouge" or "st. louis" or "dallas." this being the case, he's like the vice-president of the frequent flyers club, and he gave me some of his ticketless rewards for christmas. hooray!

anyway, that's where i'll be until friday. then it's my sister's spring break and she's going to come visit me. then it's my cousins' spring break, and they're coming to visit my family in las cruces. sweet! too bad i'll be dead from all the bloody midterm tests and projects and final solid mechanics lab write-ups... those are the real killers.

at least i'll have some fun before i die.

Mahna Mahna

here i am, being a good kid and trying to get my part of my solid mechanics lab write up done so my group doesn't kill me, and all i can think of is mahna mahna.

listen if you dare!

doo doo do do do

what's in YOUR head?

though i’d like people to think otherwise, i’m one lazy, lazy person. it doesn’t seem like it from the outside, since i was valedictorian of my class and i usually have a job and i have great grades and all… but really, most of that is luck. i spend most of my waking hours playing spider solitaire. i put my homework off until the last minute, i haven’t washed my car in years, i don’t keep in touch with my friends… i have SO much free time, and i don’t do anything with it.

today i did the dishes twice, did ALL my laundry (and there was a lot of it, because hey, i put it off for over a month), cleaned my room, and got a job, of all things. i figured while i have all this motivation i should write to you, at least about the bizarre dream i had last night. every time i sleep in my new bed, i have the weirdest dreams. the weirdest one was when i dreamed i was crucified. i think i was JESUS.

as you know, my best friend carmelita is getting married this summer. i had a dream that we were at her wedding, but the ceremony was at steve’s house here in socorro. there were rows of chairs set up in the living room. i remember seeing carmen wearing a purple shirt and jeans and panicking because she wasn’t ready to get married and i would be in trouble because i’m the maid of honor. then i saw steve, and he was wearing jeans too. they told me that the wedding was over (apparently i had just missed it, all the guests were still in the other room) and that they were tired. they were unusually okay with me missing the ceremony. they had all their bags packed and were getting into the car, and they told me they were going to san diego for the reception.

next thing i know, i’m in san diego dreamland, where it’s very, very, sunny and pretty cold. we were on an outdoor platform right next to the water under a huge ugly tent. i was sitting at a table with my brother, our new study buddy, and his sister. as far as i know, none of them will actually be at the wedding. actually, i don’t even know if the sister exists. study buddy said he used to be gay. i remember thinking, “i knew it!”

then marky larky came in! he won’t be at the wedding either, but he was working in san diego. he was carrying huge cages full of doves, and he let them go inside the tent. they all flew up to the top and carried the tent away with them and flew off. the sun was really bright, and i looked across the water and saw two penguins playing on a little island.

then it started to rain, so we all had to build a new tent. there was metal and timber sticking out on the sides. everyone was toasting carmen and steve, but i wasn’t paying attention. i don’t think i was the maid of honor.

the weirdest part of my weird dreams is how well i can remember them. i can still see every detail. are any of you dream interpreters? am i a mental case or what? help!

a sinic

you’ve definitely seen them or heard them… maybe you are one yourself. you know who i mean. the women, young and old, that hate valentine’s day.

i’m not here to question motives. people have their own reasons for feeling a certain way. personally, i’ve never hated valentine’s day or felt bitter or even been abnormally lonely, in spite of the fact that i haven’t had a boyfriend before this year. i always had a guy that i admired from afar, but no romance. i suppose my experience for comparison is somewhat limited, but thus far, valentine’s day without a boyfriend was a whole lot more fun. in fact, this valentine’s day has been the worst i think i’ve ever had. and now, when i actually have a valentine, i’m relating to the masses… this day really does suck.

what exactly is the point of valentine’s day anyway? is it to make someone feel special? is it to make someone feel loved?

last night i took mike out on an $80 date. i’d been asking him for a while what i should get him for valentine’s day, and he kept saying food. and boy, did i bring the food. i was really proud of myself. i took him to albuquerque, to a fancy brazillian restaurant that serves huge chunks of meat, and then to a movie. i even dressed up all nice and drove. mike fell asleep on the way home. i was really proud of myself.

then came today.

i saw mike even less today than on a normal day. we have a class together, so i saw him then. i study with josh, and mike studies with kat, josh’s girlfriend. today all four of us were studying in the library, but MEs in one room and CEs in the other. they stopped by our room to say hi. actually, kat said hi, mike just stood there until i said hi to him. that was all i saw of him today. i talked to him on the phone twice… both times i called him, and nothing romantic was said.

when i got home from studying after a very long, lonely valentine’s day, there was a box of fruit snacks on my bed. the really gross, generic kind that people only buy if they have themed shapes (i tried some… i won’t try any more). next to it was a card that was meant for a four-year-old… i know because i got them when i was four. plus a frame with a picture of us inside that is mine anyway, mike’s just kept it in his room for the last month. so is it like, happy valentine’s day, here’s your stuff back? that’s great. it was worse than getting nothing.

i suppose the conclusion is that valentine’s day is better when you’re not expecting anything. i don’t think i was expecting like a grand ol’ present or anything, but it would have been nice to hang out with him, or get a note from him that had more than one sentence, or even talk to him. i don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect that valentine’s day will be more eventful when you have a boyfriend than when you don’t. even last year when we weren’t together he gave me a rose.

should i be upset here? am i just being stupid? i feel like a big baby, but i also feel really disappointed. bottom line: i don’t feel special and i don’t feel loved. and valentine’s day sucks.

hello stranger

yes, it's been a while. i've finally really realized that i just can't live without the internet. i will do whatever is needed to get it into my house. right now i'm in my good ol' boyfriends room, but soon i will be publishing from my very own house! ah....

so, meet the new roomies. i'd say it's about time.

first of all, the girls in general...
they are all SO beautiful! i think rauni looks like sandra bullock, and everyone thinks nicki looks like liv tyler. i've been trying to figure out what celebrity kc looks like for quite some time now, but no luck. if you're really interested, i think she looks a little like carla bruni, but not so much to actually say it for sure.

first of all... the room-roommate, nicole.

nicki is studying early childhood development at the unm valencia campus. she's my age (21) and has a boyfriend named jonny and a dog named mocha. she's really sweet and fun and she's really, really happy like 99% of the time. i don't think she's ever had a ROOM roommate before, so it's kind of been an experience. she likes total darkness and lots of heat. i like to see and save my money. but it's working out. the good part is we have a huge closet and tons of clothes.

the house-roommate, kc

kc was doing graduate work at tech in geology i think, when she decided that it wasn’t what she wanted to do. now she’s teaching science at the middle school. she’s 24, making her the oldest of all of us. kc is very very pretty, and she’s tall and graceful and she’s has a really cute minnesota accent. she dresses nice, too. i think she could be a model. i like kc a lot, but i don’t really know how to act around her. i feel like i’m too immature or something. it’s not that she’s condescending or anything, i’m just weird.

the other house-roommate, rauni

rauni is the coolest and prettiest of us all. she only just turned nineteen this month, but she’s like superwoman, i swear. i think it was my second day at this house, she woke up at like seven on a saturday to go outside and burn the weeds in the yard. she’s got so much ambition and she’s cheerful and she stands up for herself.. she’s the only other techie in the house, but we don’t really have a techie kinship because she’s a freshman and living off-campus and still in the same town with her family and an undecided major and i’m totally in the thick of my junior engineering classes. but that doesn’t mean we’re not friends! she’s really smart and she’s not a drama queen… she’s so cool.

well, friends, it looks like my time is up for this evening. good night!

what smoke are you cracking?

as all of you know, i ended up moving in with the val verde girls. the house is big and beautiful and very cozy and homey…. i love it. there are downsides, of course, the main one being no internet. no internet! how primitive, you are no doubt thinking, but i thought i would be tortured by this fact a lot more than i am. the only real sides effects are that i’m bored and can’t look something up whenever i want to. like today i had to make a phone call to find out the surface area of a sphere. i used to be just a few clicks away from stuff like that… do i really have to remember it now? sigh….

moving in with non-techies is simply relating to me once again how backwards i really am. first of all, bedtime… i thought jessica slept a lot, but wow. these girls go to bed at like eight thirty. i don’t get it. i recently read an article about how much people sleep, and i’m not alone. it seems there are a handful of people out there who are groggy when they get to much sleep, too much being like six hours. i find that i function the best on about four. so on the weekdays i’m up late doing homework, and on the weekends, i think, hey, no homework due tomorrow! i can go to bed early!

on saturday night my roommate nicole saw me in my p.j.’s at ten and said, “are you seriously going to bed right now?” my thinking is, “it’s the weekend! time for sleep!” while theirs is, “it’s the weekend! stay up late!”

backwards.

another realization came when mike and i went out to dinner with some of his friends from home. a guy that used to go to tech, matt, his girlfriend, emily, and her best friend, jon. since we’re all students, of course we talked about school. it was so weird… mike and i have completely different lives than jon and emily. matt, who knows both situations, was in the middle and almost seemed uncomfortable taking a side. just talking about the math alone was weird. emily is nervous about taking algebra. jon is proud that he took calc one. mike laughed… i just didn’t know what to say. and then emily was talking about her major, cultural anthropology. i didn’t even know what that meant. at one point, jon asked us if we even had humanities at our school. and i’m pretty sure he was serious.

last night i went to presidents to hang out with carmen and ended up playing catch phrase with a few of the girls that live there. my word was “net.” i thought later that a normal person would have asked their teammates, “what do you catch fish in?” but i asked, “what do you use to check your email? what do we call it for short?”

and they guessed it right away, no hesitation.

tis a strange and sorted life I lead.