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.

media blitz!

i have been using gift cards and such to beef up my cd and dvd collection. here's this season's edition:

cds:
carla bruni- she was playing in barnes & noble when i went into the store, and i totally forgot about the i am sam soundtrack i wanted and bought her cd. french girl with a guitar... i really like it. it wasn't till later that i remembered all the beatles covers that i wanted. oh well, maybe next year. i'm glad i bought calra. she's chill.

norah jones- okay, norah is my hero. she's awesome. if i was her i'd be awesome. anyway, she and carla took care of my new chill music category. i ran them both by my grandfather this morning, and he didn't think either of them were bad, which is saying an aweful lot. he really doesn't like a lot of music. sweet.

chicago soundtrack- now i can enjoy the awesome music without the pain of seeing half-naked girls. woo! i think queen latifa is SO talented. and she's so pretty too. her songs are my favorites.

down with love soundtrack- the tracks with the original movie music are hilarious! i wish i had lived in the sixties.

no doubt: the singles- i needed some girl rock to balance out the girl chill i get with norah and calra, and who better but gwen? my favorite on this one is "i'm just a girl." i'm noticing a trend so far... i must be on a girl-power trip. all i need to do now is talk about aretha franklin. she's my hero, too.

ultimate 80's- i knew i watned an 80's cd, and i picked this 30-track 2-disk set for one big reason... it had owner of a lonely heart on it. true, i already have that song, but any variety cd that includes yes is sure to be a hit in my book. i'm very happy with it.

the ratpack- it's like the vegas years or something. i really like sammy davis jr, think highly of dean martin, and of course who doesn't like frank sinatra? this cd has solos, duets and trios from all three, so i'm happy.

dvds
legally blond 2- okay, this one was a gift. i've been wanting to see it, because i liked the first one. i watched it with my sister the other day, and we both thought it was aweful. i can't even tell you how bad it was. i don't know why i would ever watch it again, but now i own it. hmmm... what a quandry.

shrek 2- another sequel, only this one is excellent, arguably better than the first. playing far far away idol is very fun, too. of course, all movies are better if i watch them with my dad and he likes them. interesting, that's the third time i've brought someone else's opinion in here... maybe i have a people-pleasing complex along with girl power issues. i'm a very complicated person.

my darling clementine- no, it wasn't in the store... i had to order it. this lovely tale directed by john ford is actually not about clementine, it's about wyatt earp, played by the handsome henry fonda. if you've seen tombstone, it's a very similar story. doc holiday is a lot better in tombstone because val kilmer does such a great job, but i like henry fonda a whole lot more than kurt russell, i mean really. this is one of my favorite westerns, partly due to the shakespeare scene. for the record, i can recite more of hamlet's soliloquy than doc holiday can. yay, me!

grease- well, what can i say? it's just one of those i need to own.

master and commander- yessssss! it's mine! i LOVE this movie, it's so great. i can see how some people think it's boring, it's not very fast paced and a lot of the movie is in the dialog, but i adore it. i watched it today and i may watch it again before i go to bed, now that i'm thinking about how great it is. i spend days after i watch it pretending that i am a sailor and i sleep in a hammock and i have an english accent. i love that this movie is about friendship, and that both friends were willing to give up something important for the other. and the little one-armed kid is totally my hero! i know i already said my hero was norah, but i changed my mind. the one-armed kid is so much cooler. i love him.

i light of all this, i've really been wondering at my materialism level. i'm willing to spend my hard-earned minimum-wage wages on this stuff that won't last and that i don't really need. it makes me momentarily happy, however. another quandry. what shall i do?

the christmas-new year stretch

here's my theory. i've had it since i was a kid. christmas is so stressful and crazy and everyone's trying to remember things that they haven't finished yet, and add to that the stress of finals, vacation time from work, family coming into town, spending loads and loads of money... it's really not that enjoyable. new year's eve is where it's at. it's a big party! you're not required to bring any gifts, you don't have to spend all your money, you get to stay up late, and honestly, the tv stations play the BEST movies on new year's eve. i love new year's eve more than my own birthday. i thinnk it takes people a while to get into the holiday spirit. at christmastime, it's still settling in. but a week later, at new years, you're ready to have fun. it really feels relaxing and you're ready to have fun.

so christmastime, anyone? my parents gave me two redeemable plane tickets so i can take my darling on a trip for his birthday. i'm so excited! i want to go to washington state, and go to visit vancouvour. also in the way of presents, my little sister made me a fleece blaket with my little ponies all over it. that one is at the top of the list. and my baby brother covered a little heart-shaped wooden box with pretty paper for me and filled it with m&ms. he's so cute! of course my big brother had to buy me something expensive, now that he's a working man and all. he bought me an uthentic dallas stars jersey. it's beautiful and expensive and HUGE. i can't think of when i could wear it. really the brightest future i can see for this bank-buster is in a frame on the wall.

i bought my parents matching mom & dad t shirts that say new mexico tech on them. they also got pictures i knew they would like from the vegas trip. my dad got one of us with a begas elvis and my mom got one of us in a gondola at the venitian. my sister got blondie's greatest hits and a life-size stand up of james dean. she loves me now! for nick i got a bunch of beanies and a sweatshirt. he likes it because it actually fits him (my brother is about 6'5") and he says it's soft. the little brother got a cd and a sweatshirt. he's still at that age where a cd is cool just because it's a cd, and a sweatshirt that his sister doesn't steal is nice.

okay, i've dodged long enough. i can only write at work nowadays because i can't get internet at home. so here i go, tagging plants. (i didn't relize how bad the dishwashing job was until i came back here. i'm so glad i quit!)

shoe politics

WHAT is the deal?!?

maybe i've really digressed into nerdom. maybe socorro is going to be one of those towns stuck decades behind the rest of the world. maybe i'm the only one who thinks this... or maybe ugg boots and super-spikey shoes really are ridiculous.

honestly... the spikey shoes girls are wearing these days are the most unattractive footwear i think i've ever seen. not just girls! i went to see ocean's twelve opening night, and there's a scene where brad pitt and catherine zeta-jones, perhaps two of the most beautiful people ever, are standing next to each other, both wearing those aweful, pointy shoes. i was very sad.

less sad but equally mysterious is the obsession with ugg boots. i'm not the shoe expert my roommate is, but didn't some celebrity start those? i bet a lot of them sat around and said, "these kiddos love us so much, we could wear the ugliest shoes imaginable and they'd still copy us." way to go, public.

for reals now, not to offend, but i really am in the dark here. are the boots really comfortable? do the spikes make your legs look longer? if all this is just to look different, um... it's not working. everybody's wearing them.

except me! give me my chucks any day.

red, tomato-based condiment

sorry i haven't been writing... here's the short, short version (a la space balls).

i am now twenty one! my birthday was the day before thanksgiving. and what did i do to celebrate? i went to fabulous las vegas. no, i didn't get drunk, no, i didn't get married, and no, i'm not rich. i did gamble a little, but no one even asked to see my id! it was kind of a bummer. i wanted to show it off. oh well.

one thing about vegas is the boobs. they are everywhere. on the billboards, on the taxis, on the casino signs. people stand on the side of the road and hand out fliers for hookers all day long, and people drop them on the ground and the sidewalk is lined with boobs. it's kind of unique, but it got pretty old. the fountain show at the bellagio is the coolest thing ever, it's way better than the scanky pirate show at treasure island. that one has changed a lot since i was a kid.

then there's christmas shopping and of course, finals. i have five this semester. five! have i ever had that many? maybe i'm just getting lazy. as of now, two are down, three to go. bring it.

on to updates:

i have two, count 'em, two jobs lined up for christmas break. the good ol nursery job and a waitressing job at my brother's bakery. yay, money!

i'm moving in with the val verde girls. i'm really looking forward to not eating in the cafeteria and getting money back from the school.

my winning steak... or rather, my getting-a's-on-tests-without-studying streak finally came to an end. yes kids, it really is better to study for your tests. i promise. and it's better to wear sunscrean too. ;)

epispde 3: the moment of truth... realized!

hey, i did it! i smashed abernathy's test! i didn't get the highest grade in the class, like last time, but i was only two points away. i had a 96. not much to complain about there. at least, not for me. abernathy announced to us today that some of the kids in the class thought that the test was unfair and went and complained to the dean, saying they studied hard and that abernathy didn't help us prepare.

that's sucha lie. i'm not just saying that because i got a good grade, even my friends who got bad grades say that abernathy helps us study more than any other teacher at tech... i hope the dean doesn't listen to them.

but i suppose that's the best expected end to the trilogy, completely proving my point... studying more equals lower grades. remember that one.

girl anger, i guess

what's up with this notion that people have that girls are wimpy? even if a person never admits to it, they think it. i really makes me mad. we hear it everywhere.... "don't be such a girl." it means quit acting like a wuss. "that's a girly sport." it means it's easy. and my favorite is the football coach who tries to motovate his team by calling them ladies. don't people know that girls are going to hear these things? what if someone used your name to insult people? would it offend you?

the funny thing is, most people don't notice. most girls don't even notice.

i'm still trying to understand the whole chivalry thing. there's nothing that makes me more mad than hearing a guy say, "i respect women. i would never fight a girl." it's a complete contridiction. but i won't get into that one, it's too controversial.

interpretation, please?

i had the weirdest dream last night.

first of all, a little bit about last night. jess was reading in bed and i was reading on the couch. i really wanted to finish the chapter, but my eyes were getting really heavy and i thought that i'd just rest them for a minute. i never thought i could fall asleep on that little tiny couch. i woke up about seven hours later because jess had rolled over and knocked something on the floor. i was shocked, really shocked to find myself still on that little couch, with the light still on, the book still on my lap, and my finger still marking my page, no less! this is very unusual because i am not a very sound sleeper. jess was telling me today that she hadn't slept so well in a long time... maybe it was something in the air.

it was after i actually got into bed that i had the dream. i went to a little christian high school, and we'd have like mini-church services in the middle of the week. i dreamed i was practicing a skit for one of those. in the skit one older person was paired with a kid, and i was paired with this cute little black girl named ruby. ruby does not actually exist, as far as i know. my little brother was in it too, and his partner was mike. in the skit, the older person would be like a voice in the kid's head, telling him or her to do something bad like steal a cookie or tell a lie. of course the voice starts to win over, until the kid prays for strength. then the voice sounds like, "blah blah blah blah...." and the kid has no trouble doing the right thing. cute, huh?

and suddenly it wasn't a skit anymore, and we were outside, standing on a really steep, rocky hill. instead of a skit it was a movie, and we had to make sure we were standing in the same place in every shot. i remember that everybody was wearing really nice running shoes except for my little brother, who got himself onto some part of the hill that he couldn't get down from and was scared. while mike and the camera guys were trying to help him, i started running down the hill and sliding on the rocks. i really remember this part well. i would slide on my feet, and slow myself down by sticking my foot further into the gravel i was sliding on. it felt like i was surfing. i was thinking, wow, all my life i thought this was so dangerous, but it's really easy. ruby said that i looked cool, and she wished that she could do it. there was some other guy there too, that said i was really cool because i wasn't worried about falling. so i climbed up the hill and did it again. i wanted my brother to see so he wouldn't be scared. this time, when i got to the bottom, i just kept running. my shoes really were nice.

i went to an underground tunnel that was halfway full of water. it wasn't dark, and the tunnel was perfectly rectangular and the walls were white. it had arms branching off to the sides, like a hallway. i had been there before and i knew i was afraid of the place. i think i was afraid that it would fill all the way and i would drown, but i had to go in anyway. i was swimming and looking at things under the water. i saw a shark about as big as a dog at one of the branches, and i didn't know what to do. i stared at it for a long time, and then i realized that it was dead. i looked ahead in the hallway and there were more dead sharks, more than i could count, and they were all moving with the water. i thought they had drowned, and that i was going to drown too. and then i remember that we were all on an island, and that we all came on a boat and that we were trying to get away from the sharks and they died in the tunnel, but we got away.

all this time the tunnel was shrinking in both directions. everytime i noticed it, the height and the width were shorter. the water was coming infrom the end of the hallway and that's where the most sharks were. the water was rough there, and i knew i had to go over there and do something that i was afraid of.

and then this guy showed up! the one that was on the hill. he had followed me, and he was asking me why i was afraid of the hallway but i wasn't afraid to slide down the mountain. and he was saying that it was really hard to get to the island in the boats and how all the sharks almost killed us. he wanted to leave, because he didn't want me to be scared, so i said that i would go with him. i was thinking in my head that i would just come back when he wasn't around, because there was something i really needed to do. the tunnel was so little now that there was no room to stand up. we swam up out of the tunnel, and then i recognized the guy! i've seen him on tv, he's on a show i watch a lot. and then i woke up.

isn't that bizarre? the whole dream i was really calm. i don't think i had any emotions at all. and sometime at the end of the dream i was thinking that ruby was my daughter, and that her name was ruby joy, and that i taught her how to spell her name.

i think i should send this into a psychiatrist. how mind-boggling.

test day episode 3: the moment of truth.... trailer 1

i took the test today... and i'm stumped. it's a complete cliffhanger. i have no idea how i did.

josh thinks he bombed it. jon didn't say so, because he never really says so, but i think he's not very happy with the test. no one finished, abernathy had us turn in the tests when class was over. some people walked out of there looking like they had just found out that their dog had died. on the other hand, i heard a couple people as they were leaving says, "that test was f***ing easy!" (by the way, i am so sick of hearing the f-word. it's everywhere! can't people think of something more intelligent, or at any rate less offensive to say? they think it makes them sound cool or adult, but in reality, they sound like total idiots. i'm not above chewing any of them out.)

there were five problems on the test. i got answers for all the problems except a part b. i don't think anyone got that one, and i heard a rumor from josh that abernathy didn't give us enough information to figure it out, so he might not count it. that's fine by me! none of my answers really seemed like shots in the dark, but i wasn't completely comfident in any of them either. i'm particularly concerned about the last two problems, because they were about concepts that i didn't quite grasp in class, and they just seemed to make sense on the test. that's pretty suspicious, if you ask me, and i wouldn't be surprized if i got them wrong. but i wouldn't be surprized if i got them right either.

like i said, i have no idea how this is going to end. tune in next week for the heart-stopping conclusion of episode 3.... the moment of truth!!!

test day episode 2: the therory continues

i think i need a cigar. i don't smoke cigars, but maybe i should.

well, my theroy of tests and studying seems to hold true. this semester, the more i study for a test, the worse i do. or rather, the less i study, the better i do.

my first thermo test, i studied my butt off and got a 57. the second, i hardly studied at all and got a 95. first dynamics test, didn't study, 98. first fluids test, studied, 81. second fluids test, didn't study, forgot that the test was even in the same week, got a 100. first econ test, studied, got a "c". second, didn't study, slept though half of it, got an "a".

this is really a weird trend that's going on here. i don't know what's wrong....

i guess the moment of truth will be tomorrow's second dynamics test. i plan on not studying. we'll see what happens.

another x-child?

i watch good morning america just about every day. no, i don't seek this show out, it's what's playing every morning in the cafeteria at breakfast, and i am a breakfast person. it's not that bad... yesterday they hosted the myth-busters, some good interesting nerdy fellows that i enjoy. what you should really avoid is regis and kelly. kelly is the dumbest woman in the world. she makes me ashamed to be a female. i really have to wonder if she's really that stupid or if she fakes it because she thinks it's cute. either way, she's an insult to female intelligence and really shouldn't be on television.

anyway, i saw something interesting on gma today. they had a story about a little girl who couldn't feel pain. of course this is not a new disease, and of course it is very dangerous for her because she could be rubbing off skin, for example, and not feeling it. but, heartlessly, i have to wonder what kind of mutant power that would be, what her nickname would be, what her outfit would look like... and with every mutant power there is a mutant weakness. in this case that one is easy. she just wouldn't know when she's really getting injured. i spent breakfast pondering what kind of painful (painless?) situations she could be in without actually really doing damage to her body, instead of working on my fluids homework. lucky for me, it was really hard and nobody else did it, so dr. reilley gave us an extension. yeah.... i'd better get to that fluids homework now, and stop turning poor little girls with weird deseases into mutant freaks.

questions of the day

does every orange/lemon/lime/grapefruit have the same concentration of citric acid? does it matter how ripe they are?

what does xenophobia mean?

how many nerd ropes are sold daily? yearly? who came up with that anyway? (interesting... google search nerd ropes.)

adam told me that a person who peels the label off a jar or bottle is sexually frustrated. how are those two events related? what does sexually frustrated mean? who desided that peeling labels had anything to do with that? is there a one-to-one correlation?

how the heck does ketsup get in the packets? think about it... why is the logo off-center virtically, but never horizontally? my best guess is a long tube full of ketsup that is pinched and heat-sealed and cut, but there is not dried ketsup in the folds, so i'm stumped.

if you have any information about any of these above questions (especially the ketsup one), help me out. actually, i think i could figure out the xenophobia one myself, but other than that...

options!

i'm really excited!

i have been wanting to move off-campus for a long time, and as of today i have two possible choices for doing so. neither has actually told me for sure that i can move in, but i'm very hopeful.

option #1: the colemans
kim was my last roommate, remember her? she graduated last semester with a degree in tehnical communications, but then came back to school for a degree in civil because she just couldn't find anything else to do. i'm glad, because she's SO fun. she and i get along great, almost too great, because we tend to talk to each other when we should be doing other things. right now she lives with her sister jenny near the plaza, and she told me that it would be tight, but dirt cheap for all three of us to live there. coooool!

option #2: the val verde girls
sounds like salloon girls or hookers or something, but it's quite the opposite. there are currently three girls in this house, nicole, kc, and ronnie, and they all work at the val verde. nicki, kc and i have been friends for a few years, and ronnie is totally cool. if i moved in here i would be sharing a room with nicki and it would probably be just as cheap. and nicki and kc run a bible study on sunday nights for girls at school and iv and work. i think it would be so great to live with them!

don't get me wrong here... jessica is probably the coolest girl in this whole building. she's awesome. but i finally figured out what adam realized when we were freshmen: if i move off-campus with the scholarship i have, i will get paid to go to school here.

also, i think not having a christian roommate is affecting me again, like the semester that i lived with theresita. it wouldn't be so bad if carmen was here this semester, but sometimes i really need a girl to dish with, and as great as jessica is, we're just not close like that. i don't think people realize what an influence it is to live with people who share your faith. maybe it makes me weak, but i really need that influence.

cross your fingers!

lame

last night we had a bible study with some friends. we read the first eight verses of acts 3.

Acts 3:1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at that gate of the temple which is called Beautiful to ask alms of those who entered the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, with John, and said, "Look at us." And he fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, "I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God

there were a lot of us, and everybody was talking about "what they got" out of the passage or something. i thought it was interesting that peter and john had no money, and they couldn't get the beggar out of his situation by themselves. the poor helped the poor. telling people about JESUS isn't supposed to be condescending. it's one beggar showing another where to find life. everyone else was saying all this stuff about how we should reach out to people and how we should take time to help people and have faith in ourselves to do good works or whatever.

here's what i was thinking. everyone else at the place was putting themselves in peter and john's shoes. they were taking the example of the deciples and applying it to their lives. but what if we are supposed to relate to the beggar? he went and sat outside the temple to look for money. what if we go to church looking for something that we want, instead of something that we need, and GOD sees our need and heals us? sometimes we aren't crippled men, but we have depression or bitterness or sin that is just as hindering that we need to be rid of. and GOD can heal anything. i think sometimes we need to be the lame man. how else would we grow?

the important part is that after GOD has blessed us beyond what we could even hope for or ask for, we walk and leap and bring glory to his name. we take advantage of our new blessings and tell others that GOD is responsible.

i know right now i feel pretty lame. that sounds funny, but i wish someone would see what i need and help me out. i feel crippled.

i believed!

and speaking of baseball.....

how bout them red sox?

strike three, you're out!

dr. jo has lectured me about priorities for the last time. this week he gave us a two-part test, closed note on wednesday and open-note on friday. i'm sure i failed. i'm dropping the course. what really gets me is that vectors is easy, i understand the material, i just can't pass jo's stupid tests! well, i can pass, but what i want here is an "a". so forget it. i feel really bad about ditching adam, especially when i'm actually doing better than he is in the course.

i feel like a quitter. i feel stupid and i know i'm not. josh was right, i should have taken statistics this semester.

on wednesday adam and i were studying for our vectors test at breakfast. adam told me tony was at home cramming like crazy for his fluids test, but the fluids test was next week. i called tony and told him that. then we asked collin about some vectors concept, and when he was leaving, he asked me if i was ready for our fluids test. there was another whole table of people studying fluids at the same time. thus i found out that i had a test less than a whole hour before i took it. i ditched the vectors and crammed.

i think i did really well. i'm not joking.

yesterday i didn't get any sleep because i was so sick. i went to breakfast and begged mike to give me some of his pain pills and went back to bed. i slept through half of my economics test. luckily, i only slept through half, dr. gosh gave me a little extra time, and i think i did really well on that one, too.

i have another thermo test next week. i don't really know how to study for it. i guess i'll have to see how i do. if i flunk again, i'm really going to have a talk with dr. cal. i talked to him already about my test, but there was really nothing he could do about it. hopefully i just had a bad test day.

and then we come to dynamics, my shining star. it's nice to have one class at which i am excellent. i just hope i don't have to eat my words on the next test.

the other day, when i was working really hard on my dynamics homework for the week, jd told me that it's just not worth it, it's really not worth it. i ignored him, because i like turning in my homework correctly and working hard on it. it makes me feel good. then he asked me what i want to do with my life. i told him i don't want to wash dishes anymore.

yes, that's a golf ball. and yes, that's hail, not a snowball.

i'm finally getting a chance to post some of the pictures from the hailstorm on tuesday...
it was crazy... really really crazy. tech campus actually got hit harder than the rest of the town. the largest stones were about as big baseballs, and most of them were much larger than golf balls. it only came down for about fifteen minutes, but the damage is gone! almost every roof in town needs work. all the trees are stripped of their leaves and most of their small branches. three people got caught outside in the storm and had to be rushed to the hospital. one got hit in the head, there are pictures of him in the internet bleeding, with a concussion. every windsheild is smashed, and every car has pock marks all over it. some even have holes in the body. now they're all covered in tarps and plastic bags. the glass companies are really going to make a killing.
the storm was incredible to watch. the hail was coming down so fast that it sent dirt and grass flying up where it hit the ground and terra cotta tiles falling where it hit the roof. the velocity was unbelievable. adam told me that after the storm passed, his new roommate josh (who is quite a bit more athletic than the average techie) picked up one of the stones and threw it as hard as he could at his truck- not a scratch. that means they were coming down a lot faster than that, and i really don't think that josh is a weakling.
mike had just parked my car under a tree before the hail came down, and he actually got hit in the back with one of the stones on the way inside. he's okay, but poor jules is very beat up. the tree didn't protect her, it just covered her in dents and foilage. my back windsheild had three good-sized holes in it when the storm passed, and my front windsheild is destroyed too.
but she's not the worst. all the cars parked by south hall got really hammered. mike's truck is very beat up also. he lost a mirror and a headlight. the golf course is pretty jacked, as you can see.
honestly, these pictures don't do the storm justice. going outside is depressing because there is SO much damage. all the buildings have barriers around them so people won't get too close and get hit by falling peices of the roof. a lot of tech's buildings have skylights- or used to have skylights, i should say. there's broken glass everywhere. for more pictures, check out our "official" natural disaster site.

we used to have a nice golf course

test day

there's good news and there's bad news, and both have this annoying sense of irony.

last thursday we had a thermo test, and let me tell you, i studied for hours and hours. i can't remember the last time i studied that hard for a test. dr. cal told us to study the homework and we'd be fine. i went through every homework problem with the solutions he gave us and worked through what i had done wrong and highlighted all the formulas i used and put sticky tabs all through my book. i made a immaculate cheat sheet. i really felt very prepared for this test. i worked SO hard, harder than all my study buddies. i bet you can see where this is going.

well, nothing i studied was on the test. i might as well have had a macgyver marithon and never cracked a book.

on tuesday we had a dynamics test. i was pretty wiped out from all my thermo studying, so i didn't start studying til ten p.m. the night before. i didn't even look at the homework, i just skimmed the book and wrote stuff down on the cheat sheet.

we got both tests back today. i got the highest grade in the class in dynamics, a 98. i beat jon berg, the brainiest guy in the whole school, by nine points. i was one of only two people to get the angular velocity question right, out of a class of about thirty. the averae was about a 73.

the thermo test average was an 84. that's very high. i got a 57. i know it's not the worst, someone got a 48, but i'm so upset! i worked so hard, and i have nothing to show for it. the test was graded fairly and everything. what lesson am i supposed to learn from this?

the great hail storm of '04

SOCORRO COUNTY DECLARES DISASTER AREA
Socorro County Commissioners, in an emergency meeting on Oct. 7, declared the county a disaster area. Help for uninsured property owners may be on the way, but the process is lengthy, and everyone is asked to be patient.County Manager Jody McSmith said the county today has started rounding up figures of all damages in the county to forward to the Emergency Preparedness Office in Santa Fe.
If the total damage assessment is greater than $2 million in uninsured personal property, Gov. Bill Richardson can ask the President of the United States for an emergency declaration to release federal funds to aid individual property owners.

strike two

dr jo is evil.

the concepts in vectors are pretty easy, it's all definitions and multiplying and dividing and dividing and taking square roots and derivatives. at least i think it's easy... there are some people in the class that have trouble thinking 3-dimentionally. so imagine how hard it is for them when the components we have to work with on the homework aren't easy things like exponentials, sines, and cosines, but things like log ( sec (t) ) or t*arctant. that's mean. really mean.

and what is the point of that? i think if we can figure it out with easy components we understand the material. this is stuff that the teachers in calc3 and diffeqs would never give us because it's too bloody time-consuming and you never see it in the real world anyway! and when the whole class begged for an extention today, jo was all bugged and gave us a lecture about how we aren't being responsible about homework and we're not spending enough time working on it.

whatever. i spent more that five hours on the homework last night and i wasn't even halfway done. true, five or even ten hours would be a short amount of time in any other class i'm taking, but this is vectors. it's really frustrating when i completely understand the concept and i'm still up all night doing algebra.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

bigger, better, more complex brainwaves!

Devil64: i just thought of something... what if jon's obvious metal superiority is just a purposeful distraction from his actual mutant powers?
webguru: oh my goodness, that's it!
Devil64: he's just like that to really put us off his scent, so we won't try to figure out what he can actually do. it's the perfect disguise.
webguru: I think you might be onto something.

brainwaves

Devil64: it's so weird, josh and i are on exactly the same study schedule. last night we were both so brain dead... and when one of us is motovated, the other is too
webguru: funny! maybe you guys emit some sort of pheremone that makes you on the same schedule, like the whole girls period thing
Devil64: that's a disturbing thought
webguru: isn't it though?
Devil64: it may be true though
webguru: it could be
webguru: Jake and Scott and I seem to be that way
Devil64: so how does this work? if i hang around you, we'll start matching each other?
Devil64: because kat's not on this schedule, and she was there last night
webguru: I don't know
webguru: we don't have the same classes, just one class in common, so the phereomone isn't that strong
Devil64: hmmm
Devil64: and i'm in four classes with josh... and two with kat, so maybe that's something
Devil64: but that doesn't explain jon. he's in the same four as josh and i
webguru: well he's just sort of super human
webguru: his powerful brain can resist the phereomones
Devil64: that must be his mutant power!
webguru: it must be!
Devil64: today we RUSHED like you wouldn't believe to finish our thermo homework, and when the rest of us were sitting around recovering, jon pulled out his dynamics homework for NEXT week and started working on it
webguru: oh my goodness, that's sick
Devil64: and i said, "jon, don't you ever get fried?"
Devil64: and he laughed
webguru: oh my goodness!
Devil64: i know
webguru: he needs some mental help before he cracks
Devil64: he said he does get worn out, but i think he said that so i wouldn't find out about his mutant power
webguru: i knew it, he's covering!
Devil64: i wonder what his weakness is
webguru: "B"s?
Devil64: he said he's only had one "A-" since he's been here
Devil64: ....though in reality, it's probably been a lot longer than that
webguru: holy freaking cow that is sickening

i know you guys may be sick of hearing about it, but i really can't get enough of yes lately. i'm always listening to their music, and i'm probably driving jessica insane by playing "long-distance runnaround" and "i've seena ll good people" over and over again, but those are totally my songs of this month. last month music was just about anything from the de-lovely soundtrack. the month before that i think was los lonley boys, but the point is, YES ROCKS!

GRRRR!!!

last wednesday i took a vectors test, and i was really excited because i thought i had kicked butt, i felt really good about all of my answers, i thought maybe i got them all right, i knew i for sure got a better score than adam, and look at my big ol' sentance! that's how mad i am!

jo took forever to get the tests back to us. a week. that's too long. our class isn't that big. see, now i'm making all these little dumb sentances! that's how mad i am! GRRRR!

i finally got my test back, and it's an 88. i made two really trivial mistakes and lost four points, and then made the smallest mistake on another one and lost eight points. eight out of eight! no partial credit! would you like to know what i did? i used cosine instead of sine. that's all! that's a very understandable mistake! and now it's plus zero for me!

i went and argued with him about it, and no good. he pretty much told me, "yeah, you blew it! but you're above average, so suck it up." GGRRRR!!!

yes, i was a lot above average, which was a 70, and i was also quite a bit above adam, who got a 79. i don't think he's used to me being better at something than he is. true, he's usually the brain. i'm glad i get to pay him back for all the help he gave me in physics. yay for friends.

GRRRRR!!! for dr. jo! i'm totally going to rip him on the class evaluations in december.

here's a picture i took on campus a few weeks ago. what do you think about it?

yes indeed

last night i had SO much fun! i went to the sandia casino with mike to see a concert. not just any concert, my friends, oh no... we went to see yes.

yes, yes, yes!

this is probably my favorite band, except for the beatles, but really, who could beat the beatles? anyway, they were awesome! the venue was beautiful and the sun was setting and the sound was crisp... i loved it. our seats were great, but there really aren't bad seats in the place. when the show got going i went down to the front and stood on the lawn in front of the stage and just stared up at the band. it was so cool.

it was also really nice to go to a concert and not have to get sick of the people that just go to be seen or to act snobby or to crowd surf. the fans were all happy and friendly and there to enjoy the music. it was very refreshing. it was also different from other concerts i've gone to in that most of the crowd was over forty, since yes was popular in the 70's and 80's. that was nice too. when the show was over, it was middle-aged women, not teenage boys, that were standing next to me chanting "encore!"

that's another thing. these guys are old. this was their 35th anniversary tour. at one point, jon anderson introduced a song as one they had written in 1957. yikes. but it didn't affect their show by any means, they rocked. the band was awesome. steve howe is the most talented person i think i've ever seen. his acoustic solo was probably the highlight of the show, except of course the performance of "owner of a loney heart." that's not my favorite yes song, but it's high on my list and my favorite that they played last night. the band honestly seemed like they were having lots of fun, and the crowd was very appriciative of them. jon anderson started talking about the beauty of new mexico and how they can't really pin down what it is that makes up the american spirit. the band came back for one encore, a cover of an old beatles song. it was a great ending.

right now i'm wearing a black hat that says "yes" on the front and "35" on the back. rock and roll.

five movie reveiws (reviews?)

i watched five movies this weekend, all that i hadn't seen before. if you haven't seen them either, no worries, i won't give away the ending. i really hate it when people do that.

The Butterfly Effect- this movie completely blew me away. it was by far the best one i saw this weekend. i should metion right now that i saw the director's cut, which i'm told has a totally different ending from the theatre version. some nudity, too. but the plotline was so awesome, i don't know how people come up with brilliant stuff like that.
the movie starts out with a flash-forward to the end, with ashton krutcher's character, evan, running through a building and hiding from people. he writes a note about trying to save a mysterious "her". it then goes back to his childhood, when he's seven and when he's thirteen, and begins the story. little evan seems to have a problem- he blacks out events in his childhood and can't remember what happened while he was out, even though others don't notice a difference in his behavior. his mom gets concerned about him, thinking that he had inheirited a mysterious "father's illness", and makes him start keeping journals and writing everything down so he can remember it better.
after a messed-up childhood, evan discovers that he can revisit events in his past by reading about them in his journal, and can even change what happened. of course by changing the past he changes the future, and he gets stuck going back and forth between his childhood and the alternate presents he creates, trying to find the perfect future for everyone he loves. you see the problem here i think.
like i said, the plotline was great, maybe just a little disturbing. i was very impressed with the versitility of the actors. one that went to particular extremes was william lee scott, who played adult tommy.
one thing that did bug me about this film was that the directors made it seem like a horror movie at first. the first half hour or so makes you think that little even is very psychotic, sadistic, murderous, etc, but that's really not how it is at all. there were definitely some not-so-pleasant scenes, but this was in no way a slasher movie, contrary to the initial vibes.
the butterfly effect is definitely a thinker. it's got some nudity and a lot of language and a lot of violence, even among the seven and thirteen-year-old characters. it's disturbing... but you have to see it!

Maid in Manhattan- i was a little bit prepared for this one... alicia of course told me how it ended several months ago, so there was no surprize. i really hate when she does that. but i guess it didn't ruin much since it says "cinderella story" on the tagline.
anyway, this movie was very enjoyable. i think jennifer lopez is extremely beautiful, especially when she's not in one of her music videos. there are a lot of great dresses in this film. the kid that played the son was great! he was funny and believable and really cute! he reminded me of my little brother. he was my favorite, along with the make-shift fairy-godmother, who was really the heroine's troublemaker co-worker.
the "prince charming" character didn't impress me too much. he wasn't very likeable or dreamy, in my opinion, and i didn't understand why she fell for him. it was because he liked her kid i guess. okay. it's true, girls are suckers for guys that like kids. guys, take note of this but don't abuse it.
all in all, this movie was interesting as movies go, but it wasn't very believable in the plotline. it was very predictable, not just because i knew the ending or because the end of cinderella is common knowledge anyway, but because there was no suspence. a nice little chick flick, but nothing special.

The Prince and Me- (a.k.a. cinderella story # 2) i liked this one better than maid in manhatten, but i still didn't get it. what's so great about the guy? it's frusterating.
this is the story of edward, the spoiled, perverted, lazy prince of denmark and the hardworking, movated, focused, sensible, independant, wisconsin college girl, paige. and that's just it! there was no kid to speed up the process in this story. i can't understand it when these goal-oriented intelligent women fall for these total guys. no offence guys, but really, what is the deal? that's why i never really liked the music man. the songs are great, to be sure, but the sensible librarian falls for this lying, cheating con artist. i hate that.
anyway, this film was a little too multi-faceted for me. there were too many stages of the relationship. they were strangers, enimies, friends, and lovers, in several different locations. and those categories were visited more than once each. it's like this movie crammed what might be a believable romance into... well, into a movie. it didn't work in my head.
what also didn't work is why she fell for him. he's very dreamy-looking, but she had her goals and he had no character, and i just don't see it.
i did enjoy this movie, even though it may not seem like it. there were some beautiful locations, very nice dresses, incredible palaces, and a handsome couple. but i don't think i'd watch this one again.

Knockaround Guys- i wanted to see this movie because i really like barry pepper and seth green, even though vin diesel doesn't inpress me much and i really can't stand john malkovich. i just think he's the worst actor in the whole world. i liked this movie a lot. there was a lot of language and a considerable amount of violence (the worst part was in the first ten minutes), but i did like it. i liked that seth green's character flew an airplane.
this really isn't a light-hearted movie, as it's about a mob kid trying to prove himself to his uncle and father. the movie starts out with the uncle telling the 12-year-old kid to kill one of the mob targets in the basement of the family restaurant. it has a lot of honest suspence, and i really like that about movies. i love the feeling that i don't know what's going to happen, for some reson. this one's not a waste of your time.

When Harry met Sally- okay, i never thought of billy crystal as attractive before, but in this movie i thought differently. he also does that lonely, lost-puppy look very well. i still kept thinking of him in an old man face saying lines from the princess bride, which messed me up for a while, but didn't spoil anything. meg ryan freaks me out, i'm not sure why, and this movie was no different. i see a lot of her, however, since she is one of mike's favorite actresses.
but about the movie... i really liked that they kept meeting at several year intervals, that made it interesting, and the initial 70's style was fun. billy crystal is so funny! and carrie fischer in her role as the quirky best friend was hilarious as well. i never knew that about her.
this movie is about two very different people who are looking for love and not really finding what they want. as they keep running into each other, they become good friends. of course a weird romance blossoms. the movie has serveral interruptions, so to speak, from old couples sitting on the couch telling the stories of how they met. it's very sweet. i'm not one to really like romantic movies, but i liked this one. and it was funny! but honestly, what did i expect, watching a film by the creator of the princess bride?
i took a quiz online once that said this was the movie i belong in. naturally i was very curious, but i just don't see it. i really don't. can you explain this to me?

here's to many more

i'm sure none of you know this, but last night marked five months to the day that mike and i have been together. since he bought me like twenty roses and a milk shake last month (and i forgot), i figured i'd better be on top of things this month. i wanted to get a coloring book, but the only one in the store was vandalized. i went with twelve peach-colored roses and a bottle of sparkleing bubbly.

mike gave me a watch. and drew me a picture.

the picture is of tinkerbelle, and she's really cute and surrounded by stars and the words to one of the songs from the musical, Peter Pan, in mike's pretty caligraphy handwriting. the watch has a thick brown leather band with pretty pink flowers and stars, and the face is all shiney and pink and square. it's perfect. there's no way i could have picked out a better watch for myself. i was bragging about it to everybody today.

aww, he's so cute! what a good boyfriend i have. :)

meet jessica

so i bet you're wondering by now... what's the new roommate like? as you may or may not know, kim graduated last spring (but no use, she's back doing undergrad, civil engineering this time), so i got a new freshman. last time i got a freshman it ended disasterously, we never spoke to each other and i ended up moving out. this time, however, i think it'll be fine. meet jessica.

jessica is an undeclared engineering major who plays the clarinet and bassoon who was drum major at her school for the last two years. we were emailing this summer, and when i got that information i formed a jessica in my mind. i figured short, long-haired burnette, athletic, and mean, loud, and in-your-face enough to be a drum major. i was really surprized. wrong on all points.

jessica is tall with short blond hair (although not as short as mine, since i cut off eleven inches this summer). while she must have incredible endurance to be a drum major, she doesn't have a particularly athletic build. the most surprizing part is that she's very soft spoken. she's not mean at all, not even sarcastic. she's very nice and already has several friends here, and she's from farmington, so she knows a lot of the same people mike knows. one thing that really impressed me is that she's not trying really hard to present this image like most freshmen do (and like i did). most of them are trying to be cool or crazy or impressive or snobby or rebelious or whatever. and she doesn't go that way.

and one more thing, she's totally cool. she brought these pretty cork boards that she made, and she has a desk calander that has a shoe for every day of the year. and she brought sparkley power-puff- girls handsoap. that's awesome!

we haven't been like super-bonding or anything, but i think we'll be just fine.

revenge becomes me?

the "funniest" thing happened in economics on thursday...
ghosh was giving us some sample problems and then working through them, which took forever of course, because he read all of them out loud. no body was really listening. people fell into two categories; sit-back-and-dose, which i joined, or race-dr.-ghosh-to-finish-the-problem, which almost everyone else joined. josh was sitting between me and ben. he didn't have his calculator, so he kept trying to get ben's, which ben was still trying to use, and you see the problem.

since i was sitting back and dosing, i gave josh my calculator to use. he turned the screen on and laughed. the screen said "I HEART YOU HOT HOLLY!"

that could only be from mike. i think i blushed.

then dumb ol' josh passed it to ben. who passed it to the next person. and so on. soon the whole row was laughing. i KNOW i was blushing then.

it's cute that mike left me a calculator message... but josh is going to get it.

back to school

confound and bebother this slow dorm connection! man did i get spoiled this summer with steve's wireless internet.
it's the first day of classes, and yes, i do have a lot of catching up to do on the twenty days you didn't hear from me. i promise it'll come soon. this semester i'm taking dynamics, engineering economics, thermo, fluids, vectors, and junior design, yay! i had to get my advisor dr. reilley to sign off on that one, because he controlls my life and happens to be the teacher. every time i go talk to him i feel like i've won a battle. he's so intimidating.
everyone and their dog is taking dynamics, including mike, jd, josh, kat, jeremy, and jon. in fact... josh and jon were in all my classes today, and we're already in the same project group for economics. we have ghosh for that class, the same teacher i had for statics. i guess this time we'll be prepared for a butt-kicker final. his stuttering seems to have gotten better, but he still has the craziest accent i've ever heard.
i have jr. design in one hour. i'm a little worried about dr. reilley. josh told me he wants to get an a in that class just so he can throw it in reilley's face.
yeah, speaking of josh... what a pain! in thermo i was playing with my bracelet and he whispered, "i bet if dr. zeman was teaching you'd pay attention." he still thinks i have a crush on him. i told him that if i was the flipping off kind of person i would totally flip him off.
and i had a thought today. an army of one. talk about an all-time recruiting scam. yeah sure, be an individual, join the military!

y'all get y'rass on over here

webguru: is Ms. Boltzmann there?
Devil64: she just left with scuba, i think they were finding food
webguru: ok
webguru: when Corrie gets back, tell her to get her ass on IM and tell me what's going on for tonight
webguru: in a kind way of course ;-)
Devil64: okay, i'll relay the message
Devil64: "adam saaays... get yerass on aim!"
webguru: good job
Devil64: y'rass
webguru: ahhh! you just made a new Texan cuss word!
Devil64: y'all get y'rass on over here
webguru: haha!!!!!!
webguru: we need to patent that one
Devil64: what is this "we" white man?
Devil64: ;-)