how's life?

ahhh.... home again.
yeah, not really.
tonight i got into a pretty heated argument with my sister, which really wasn't that interesting, but resulted in her going to a lame party with my brother and me trying to walk all the way home from the hilton.
on the good side... hey, i'm back in a town with a hilton! and my grandparents saw me walking down the street and gave me a ride. i was actually enjoying my walk, but i didn't want my grandma to worry. she worries.
elizabeth is here again. she gets into fights with my mom all the time. she keeps saying smart-alecky things to me, like, 'holly, when you grow up, let me know.' tonight i was particularly shocked that she could make so much noise drinking her milk. honestly, it was incredible. i didn't say anything though. it's best to keep those things quiet around her.
on the good side, i'll be leaving in a week and i won't have to see elizabeth after that. for those of you who don't know, elizabeth is a girl that is two years older than me (22) that my mom decided to adopt two summers ago. i know what you're thinking... hey, i thought you couldn't be adopted after the age of eighteen? yeah, that should be the way things work.
i'm back at the nursery working for a while. the best thing that's going for me here is the weather. it's been cool lately, not just cool for the summer or cool for las cruces, but actually chilly. i'm learning all the names of plants again. all in all, work is going great... but there's this new guy duane who is SO annoying! he's such a suck-up and the biggest know-it-all. grr.
tomorrow my little brother nick graduates from high school! i think i'm going to get him some hockey gloves, like that's something i can afford... but i feel bad that everyone made such a huge fuss over my graduation, and no one cares that much about his. poor little brother bear.
this morning at 9:30 my aunt had a baby boy! i have a little cousin! he was like ten pounds (holy crap) and his name is alexander jefferson. i haven't seen him yet, but my grandparents were talking about him a lot on the car ride. i guess my uncle is really excited. how cute!
i guess that's it for a while. one week til i go back to tech and we start filming for "the real world: socorro". that's what my hockey buddies are calling it. no one can believe i'm going to share a house with corrie and three guys. but i'm excited!

here i am!

The Guardian
Adventure, thrill seeking, loyal, with high goals
for themselves, and equally high standards for
society. They protect what they stand for, and
those that cannot stand up for themselves.


A unique perspective on one's inner self: who are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

i'm a guardian angel! neato. i think the description fits me pretty well, but i think this was one of those quizzes that people can find a little bit of themselves in every answer. okay.

one more week of school (two tests and three homework assignments), then a three-day finals week, and i'm done for this semester! yay! then i have three weeks to work at the nursery again before i come BACK up to socorro to take my summer courses. this summer it's electrical engineering for non-majors and technical writing. i'm going to live with steve and christian, and maybe corrie. i'm excited! i've never had guy roommates before, not counting my brother and hoyoung. and i don't count them. it'll be interesting, since steve is my best friend carmen's fiance. stay tuned, this summer is sure to be an entertaining one!

ok, NOW i'm mad

alright, i don't know if anyone knew this but i am a huge hockey fan. HUGE. and this is the first season in a long time that i have actually had time to watch the play-offs. i was really excited about this, up until all the teams i care about were suddenly OUT. watch this.
teams i care about:
DALLAS STARS (my favorite team ever! yay, dallas!)
--- out
new jersey devils (my buddy kevin's favorite team, that i root for in case dallas is not around)
--- out
st. louis blues (my buddy hugo's favorite team, that kevin and i root for in case we both are teamless)
--- out
boston bruins (my boyfriend mike favorite team, that i don't really root for because they aren't very good, but still, i care)
--- out
the penguins (my ex-favorite team that i divorced after the jerks traded jagr)
--- out
i think you get the idea. actually, i'm not being entirely truthful here. there is still one team in the running that i care about. it's colorado. and when i say care, i mean hate. i don't know why people hate sports teams. it's totally irrational. but i HATE colorado! i like them a lot better now that roy is retired (sorry roy fans, it's nothing personal, i promise. yeah, he's good. no, i have no reason to not like him. but i don't), but i still love to see them loose. my friend jeremy says they are like the yankees... everyone holds a strong opinion. my opinion is utter loathing.
so honestly.... why have they won their second game in a row against san jose in over time? any of my fellow ABC (Anybody But Colorado) fans will be happy to know the answer. they won twice when they should have been swept for this reason alone: my friend jd prayed for them.
it's all over.
once last semester jd thought the weather was a bit hot so he prayed for rain. it POURED for three days. the roads closed.
remember game seven last year when the red socks got illiminated? they blew their comfortable lead because jd prayed that the other team would win it. same thing happened with the cubs and the marlins.
nice that jd can petition heaven for things like that. CRAPPY that he doesn't care about hockey at all, he just prayed for them because he knows i want them to loose. my only hope here is to trick him into thinking i want san jose to loose so he'll pray for them. DANGIT!

I have so much homework I can't go to bed.
I'm tired and I'm bored and I've knots in my head
From sitting, just sitting here day after day. . .
It's WORK! How I hate it! I'd much rather play.
I'd take a vacation, run off for a rest,
If I could find someone to go take my test.
If I could find someone, I' fly away free....
Would YOU like to do my homework for me?


No, I didn't really write it. Dr. Suess wrote most of it, I just changed some of the words because the complaining and longing to have fun inspired me! And hey, if you know which Dr. Suess book this is from, you are SO cool. You should write me a note. And hey, now I have the comment feature, so that's entirely possible! NEAT.

no-go on the initials in the wet cement. last night i was sick because i went and ate some nasty food at the cafeteria, so by the time night fall came around, i was doing as little walking as i could. that's college for ya. either you're up all night studying or you're up all night sick from the freakin' bad food.

the dorm next to mine is being re-constructed into an office building. this is sad on many levels. first, all the boys that used to live there who were really fun and my friends are now WAY across campus, like a five-minute walk. yeah, it's not that far, techies are lazy. second, the work day for these construction guys starts at six-thirty. the work day also usually starts with a jackhammer or something equally loud right outside my window. yeah, it's not early, techies are lazy.
but right now it's not so bad. they just poured some new cement down there, and there's two guys very dilligently sweeping off the surface to make sure it is smooth and blemish-free. the problem is, there's only one broom. so these two big burly construction workers are very carefully, very tenderly tossing the broom back and forth over their fresh cement so they won't mess up the work they just did. it's one of those things you have to stop and watch.
but that won't stop me from sneaking down there tonight and putting my initials in the cement. bwah hah hah!

she's done it again!

that's right. the third materials lab write-up. it was not as painful as the second, but it did require an all-nighter, a caffine pill, breakfast at denny's, and five hours in josh's room. i got the highest grade (actually, the only 'A', and it was a high one) on the first write-up and the highest 'A' on the second write-up too, which surprized me because i thought i turned it in pretty incomplete. i only have two weeks to rest before the last one!
i'm a little concerned about school here... i am kicking butt in materials lab, but that's only one credit hour. i'm doing great in mechanics, but really the only grade that matters there is the final. materials is just about the easiest class ever, so i'm doing fine, but i never go to class and the teacher knows this. i haven't gone to diffeq in like two weeks, and i've resorted to bribery with the grader. that leaves physics and physics lab.... ug. i try so hard in those classes. i just suck at physics.
it doesn't help that i am completely un-motovated. i really don't want to work on anything.
i don't want to but i must, dear, dear. i have a physics quiz in half an hour. i'd say it's time to hit the books.
i remember when i was SO good at school...

now it is an ugly day

okay, here's the deal with me. i'm obsessed about records. like keeping records and setting records and breaking my own records. if i can go four and a half days without eating at the cafeteria, i'm all for it. if i can do three days without sleep, heck yeah! it's hard-core to have outrageous records. i have never been skiing in my life. i take great pride in telling people i have never been bowling. i have had ample opportunities to go bowling, but i never have, because if i did, i couldn't say that i'd never been bowling anymore. my record of twenty years, four monhs and a few weeks of not bowling will be spoiled and i'll have to start over. it's not because i'm deprived. it's becasue i'm obsessed with records. i've never done my laundry on campus or gone to the el camino family restaurant or visited the school's famous mineral museum. just to say i've never done it. it's completely irrational.
so does that mean just because i've never had a boyfriend, i'm going to want to keep that record going too? i've never had my heart broken by a guy. why should i stop that trend now? and just because i've always gotten along with a friend and never had any kind of disagreement with him, is that a good reason for me to NOT tell him that he's bugging me? because it will break our otherwise-spotless relationship record?
i'm really confused right now. i've broken records that i didn't want to break. i've set new records, too. i dealt with things badly and caused a friend that i care about to not talk to me for several days in a row... another broken record. i think i'm fast on the road to doing other things i've never done before, and i don't like it.
i keep telling myself i'm just in a bad mood. i'll feel better about things later when everything gets back to normal. but i think i'm kidding myself. things aren't going to get back to normal.
i should have listened.

smile!

ugly day, the sun is shining
every cloud's got a silver lining
ugly day, the skies are blue
now every day is ugly without you!
-five iron frenzy

i'm really happy. i think that's partly due to the fact that i played soccer yesterday and didn't suck. also because my study buddies have been keeping me from failing my classes. also because i walked into physics lab today, ready to throw myself at the mercy of my ta because i hadn't finished my lab, and just as i was about to beg for a few more hours she made this announcment: the labs are due next week! she had decided that kinda out of the blue. adam wasn't finished either. we totally lucked out. woo!
i got my physics test back. it was a b. that is SO weird. i really thought that one was a flunk for sure. and i took a diffeq test on monday. i think i did good!
i hope this good streak lasts for a while. i am enjoying myself. :)

queen of the nerds

ladies and gentlemen, let's hear a nice big round of applause for our academic olympiad! our little hard-core nerdy girl!
i am good. good and tired, that is. friday night people started coming into town, so i stayed up all night and hung out. saturday i tried to do the same, but fell asleep at about two and had a few hours of accidental rest. i got up really really early on sunday and strangely don't remember anything about that night. i do know it was the last time i slept in my bed. on monday we had dress rehearsal, so tony and i stayed up until three am afterward finishing the physics homework. i fell asleep on adam and tony's couch and got up at six on tuesday. stayed awake all day.
but last night (which is still tuesday) is the real story here. i went over to josh's room at ten and worked my butt off... i mean i really worked, i didn't goof off- until four-thirty in the morning. you guessed it, the second quarter-semesterly materials lab write up. while i was at josh's, i managed to get out of my diffeq homework. the grader for that class showed up and i told him i'd bake him a cake if i didn't have to turn in today's homework. it worked ; )
josh was as done as he was going to be at four-thirty, but i came back to the tv room in my building and worked on my paper some more... until i went to breakfast at denny's with curtis, mike, scuba steve, nicki, johnny, rod, jamison, and james. then i came back and made a mad dash to finish my lab write up, ran to print it out at the computer center, and then ran to jones to leave it on my ta's desk. have you ever ran across a college campus on a nice warm sunny ten am morning... after you've had less than ten hours of sleep in the last five days? i don't exactly recommend it. it took me a while to recover. then i went home, took a shower, and went to mechanics. tony had picked up all my diffeq homework for me, and they were all 100's and 95's! tony, adam and i got lunch and went to my room to start (and finish) the physics homework, and then we went to recitation.
only to receive another assignment. dr. eack loves doing that to us.
still no sleep, i've got rehearsal in an hour and physics homework, a physics lab, and a materials assignment due tomorrow. tonight's rehearsal will run well past midnight. then i have another rehearsal tomorrow, right after i get out of lab!
but i'm happy, because i think i'm going to get to sleep tonight. in my bed! hooray!
no, seriously, this pace will probably make me sick soon, but i'm not miserable. i'm actually very proud that i worked on the lab for nearly eight hours straight! well, i can't take all the credit here. josh gave me one of his special caffeine pills. man, that messes you up. taking one of those bad boys on an empty stomach is another thing that good little girls and boys should never, never, do.
nevertheless, my lab write up was finished and turned in on time. this can only bring happiness.
and mike's bringing me brownies and coffee at rehearsal tonight.
: )

a little backround information before i let you read what my study buddy josh said about my away message. today i wore a pirate t-shirt that mike got for me in maine last week. all day (including in materials lab, where we are cold-working copper) i was trying to talk like a pirate and josh made fun of me. also, in materials, there are three types of atomic holes. a-hole (funny), b-hole (still amusing), and a c-hole (this last one is a square).

Auto response from ME: d'arr, mateys! where be me pistol? i been taken captive by me studies, those scabbarous dogs! save yourselves! run for yer lives, me hearties!
ARRRRR!

TurnandReality: You are such a dork.

ME: shuddup c hole

TurnandReality: lol

boy meets girl

like i said, i have been very faithful in my extra-curricular reading this week. yesterday i finished Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris. i actually read it kind of by accident, because i had started to read some book in carmen's room a while back that i thought was this one, and i wanted to finish it, but actually that turned out to be When GOD Writes Your Love Story. i don't know how that one is.
but Boy Meets Girl wasn't exactly a pleasent surprize. it had a lot of good points and a lot of Godly perspectives on relationships, but for a lot of it, i was staring at the page thinking, "are you serious?" The chapter about gender roles particularly ticked me off. ol' josh essentially stated that a girl being "one of the guys" is unbiblical. well, i guess i'm in big trouble then. fact is, i rarely feel like one of the girls. groups of girls usually intimidate me. when i'm the only girl in a group of guys, i usually don't notice. i don't know what that says about me as a Christian, but i'm really not feeling convicted to change that about myself.
josh also talked about how motherhood is a disrespected "profession", and more girls should be eager to pursue it. he also clearly states that the guy is the breadwinner, and implies that it's very rare to find a woman pursuing a career that is staying "biblically feminine" (a term he never actually defines). alicia's family comes to mind here. her mother worked at a very respectable job and her father stayed at home with the kids for several years. now that the kids are older, they both work. i know a lot of families are like that. does that mean the women are denying their biblical gender roles? i don't think it does.
a few other things that made me mad... the tone of the book seemed to say that everyone gets married, and that GOD has "that special someone" for everybody. so no one ends up single? does GOD not love single people or what? it's nice to think about, sure, but i think that there are people that GOD wants to keep single. single people don't have to consider their family when thinking about going into missions or following a job.
also, joshua implies that the only way to get married is through the church. i think it's very good to get married through the church, but not being one to like denominational segregation, there's nothing wrong with marrying someone that goes to a different church. but josh talks about the pastor being involved. not pastors. hmmm...
oh, and only perfect people get married, by the way. he gives general advice, like don't marry someone with a bad temper or who disrespects his parents. good advice i guess, but there are people out there with quick tempers. so the people with tempers don't ever get married, or they are at least doomed to be unhappy all their days. sucks to be them. i happen to know a lot of easy-to-set-off guys who are happily married.
alright, i think i'm done griping about that. i would like to state, however, that if GOD wants me to stay single and never get married, bummer, but so be it. and i'm not above marrying a person from a different church (actually, as there really aren't any guys at my church, i hope for it). and i will continue to be one of the guys, unless someone can really prove to me that it's wrong. there ya go.

this had better be temporary

when did i get to be SUCH a bum?
all my travel plans for spring break fell through, so instead of going home to las cruces and sleeping all day and goofing off online all night, i opted to stay in socorro and actually get some work done. next week is the musical, and we have dress rehearsal everynight or something, so i wanted to get all my homework for next week done. it was concievable. i have a huge physics assignment and one of those enormous materials lab write-ups due on tuesday, then a little bit of diffeq and a physics lab write up (both relatively easy) due on wednesday and thursday. oh, and because dr. eack so loves to give us homework, i was expecting to read the next chapter in the physics book and summarize it to get read for the next quiz.
but like i said, out of nowhere, i have become the biggest slacker.
i've been here in socorro since monday evening, and carmen and steve left on wednesday night, so by now i've actually had two un-interrupted days of nothing to do. i started reading two books. i've been pretty diligent with those. but homework? no way. i've done quite a few physics problems, but not even half of the assignment, haven't even looked at the diffeq, written about two pages (out of the bare minimum of ten, mind you) of the materials lab, and the title... that's right, one minute's work of work... of the physics lab write up. in TWO DAYS.
i don't know what's wrong with me. if my room has become a place where i can't do work, i am so screwed. i'd better get back into the zone when school starts up.

awww yeah!

here's the deal with the hockey league this season...
remember how i told you they are moving indoors and the adult games are going to be on weeknights now? and that i couldn't make it into town on weeknights? so i thought i'd be sitting out at least for this season, maybe forever.
WELL of course the new rink isn't finished. of course. nothing in las cruces is ever finished on time, i don't know why i thought this would be any different. so they told me that for the first few weeks, all the games are on saturdays. they also told me that as long as i can make it into town for the games, i can get some playing time. tom made me the official "free agent" of the league, which means i can play with any team that needs a sub. last week i played two games, and this week i played three. five games in two weeks... this is really nice!
last night i asked barry and ray when the indoor rink would be ready. they said probably not all season.
ALL SEASON.
heck yeah, i could do two or three games a week all season.
being a free agent is AWESOME!!

very dramatic

yesterday there was a guy in front of the chartwells cafeteria who was having students fill out forms for credit cards. he was getting everybody's personal information, including their social security number, their signature, and he was taking digital pictures of their student ids. when i saw all that he was getting, i wouldn't fill out my social security number, but jesse and peter did, and they got these little basketballs or something. the guy tried to convience me by saying that he had identification, he just didn't have it with him. riiiiiiiight.... i told him i was sorry i wasted his piece of paper and left.
kim and trevor called campus police from our room. jesse and peter started freaking out when we told them everything that could happen with identity theft, and campus police took a really long time to get there and they were worried that this guy was going to pack up and leave. so i went and called campus police from the chartwells phone. and an officer came in like two minutes and asked who had made the call. i told him that this guy was getting pictures of everybody and their ss# and their signatures and didn't have any id. the cop went and got all the info from the guy, and while he was out there jesse and peter went and got their forms back. but he wouldn't erase his digital pictures. right after the cop left the guy took off.
it was scary. i feel smart. and i called the police and they came!
jesse and peter were way more scared than i was though. they said i saved them! hooray!

that's right... i got it made

yes, yes, i am the luckiest girl in the world. my super-talented roommate kim and our super-talented friend jesse (who also happens to be the perfect man, we decided) are in here practicing for rob's wedding. right now they are playing pachabel's cannon, and it's the first time they have played it togther, but OH MY GOSH! they sound SO good. i'm ready to about pass out. i gave up on trying to do homework to this heavenly music that makes me want to fly and sleep and... get married! but i can't let them know i'm not doing homework because they are so nice that they would schedule practice when i'm in class or something, so as not to distract me (or contribute to my dilinquency, as kim puts it), and then i wouldn't be able to hear them practice.
OH IT'S SO PRETTY.
and by the way, YEAH RIGHT on all that homework i wanted to do. i was very dilligent, i promise, but the materials took me a lot longer than i thought it would, so i didn't get to physics or mechanics or the library.
wow jesse is so cool. i'm completly impressed. last week after he left and kim and i were disscussing how perfect he is, she asked me, "holly, do you have a crush on jesse?"
i said, "no, but i should."
and DUDE... i should.

la la la

it's a beautiful day outside, i have tons of time to do my homework, i'm listening to good ol' mr. armstrong, and i am eating a strawberry ice cream cone. one thing good about our cafeteria-- the ice cream is fabulous. and STRAWBERRY ice cream... well, you can imagine.
last night i finished all of the diffeq homework, right now i am going to finish all the materials homework and email the data to our ta, then i am going to read a LOT of mechanics to get ready for our killer (and i mean KILLER, 25% of the final grade) midterm in two weeks, start on my physics lab write up, and go to the library and run off copies of tomorrow's materials lab. nice. let's see what i can do in three hours.
oh, and i had a dream that jamison was trying to kill me the other night! more about that later.

what do you mean, "starving?"

i think this is the first time i've ever really felt like a "starving college student."
right now i'm trying REALLY hard to enjoy this really lumpy, watery canned tomato soup, waiting for scott to call me so we can work on differential equations homework. scott's eating pizza. big new yorker. grrrrrrrr.... i want pizza. after i heard about the pizza, i said to myself, i'll be fine. i have soup!
true, i have soup, but i do not have a can opener or a roommate with a pocketknife at the moment, so i stared at the can for a while, wandered around the hall knocking on doors, came back to the room, thought about eating popcorn and tootsie pops for dinner, wandered around again...
finally amber saved me. saved me and delivered me to this mm mm good soup. whoops, i was typing for too long. now it's cold lumpy watery tomato soup.
i didn't actually open this up to complain... i was going to ask you all if you have heard Louis Armstrong sing "A Kiss to Build a Dream On." this is my song of the month. the second runner-up is "Hurricanes" by Five Iron Frenzy. listen to them! they are both fabulous.

now that i'm not spending ALL my time writing up my metallography lab, i have stop and breathe and sleep... and shower...
not really, it wasn't that bad, but it almost was. i didn't have time to eat or sleep, but i made time to shower. really, school shouldn't be this demanding. the basic life cycle shouldn't have to depend on the quarter-semesterly lab write-ups.
anyway, the thing i've been thinking about for a few days is how people in my life have so much character. it's almost like they are fictional and were made up to be the quirky personalities of a sitcom.
take my materials tas, for example. teri and jeb. teri is short and sort of wide and has kind of looks like a cartoon critter that wears clothes and walks and talks. she's really nice, she knows what she's talking about, but she's kind of shy about talking in front of the group. jeb is tall and skinny and likes talking in front of us even less. he also knows what he's talking about, but he's super shy. teri and jeb are always competing and arguing about who is right, but it's really obvious that they are really great friends and i get the feeling they stick up for each other a lot. apart they are normal lab tas, but together... i just can't get over how funny it is.
then take my roommate kim. she is just about the most talented person i know. i'm glad i'm not her sister. i would probably have a complex. she is one of the best irish step dancers in the country, and she is certainly the best in the state. she also plays the harp, so at this very second, over my right shoulder, she is teaching a boy from the dorm across the street how to play a simple song on her five-foot baby. and it really is like a baby. we have a humidifier in here and a meter that tells us the comfort zone of the harp. this week i've been sitting here studying to live harp music. HECK YEAH. and she decorates cakes and proofreads papers and is the president of the technical communications club... seriously, i would have a complex if i was being compared to her.
there are so many others... curtis is always bouncing off the walls, scuba steve is the sweetest guy ever, peter always talks fiv times faster than my brain moves... and jesse is now leaving my room and it just occured to me that he is quite the stero-typical Perfect Man.
my life is so entertaining.

hey kids!
i have ten minutes before class, but i wanted to let you know... what happened last night!
the "boyfriend applicant" that wanted to surprize me was none other than patrick, one of scott's roommates. he ran into me at swing and told me he had to show me something, and led me up to his apartment and gave me flowers and a manila folder with four letters of recommendation from one of his roommates, a girl that had been on a road trip with him, and a former girlfriend. and, uh... one was from him.
well, needless to say, kim and i were both freaking out, and curtis, scuba steve, trevor and travis were all trying to help us out, and we weren't sure if patrick knew that it was just a joke or WHAT. but we were both having a cow.
back at our room, after swing, curtis, kim and i read the letters, and they were SO FUNNY. the card in the flowers made it clear that patrick knew it was a joke and was just trying to stress us out for a while and give us a laugh.
we laughed.
he totally had us going though. whether or not this was serious, i need to learn to keep my big mouth shut.