September 2001 Archives

i slept too much last night. i'm still tired.

i had a fight with nick last night. {sigh} i hate fighting with people. it makes me feel like a horrible person. our arguments always have the same undertones. i mention how everyone at work adores him; he mentions my fellowship and academic success. i guess he doesn't realize that i'd give it all up to be as happy-go-lucky as he is.

we explored the stanford shopping mall today. it was beautiful. i can't comprehend what it must be like to grow up in palo alto. i wonder if the kids here realize how lucky they are. in high school i hung out at southpark, a mall that was trying desperately to kick out no-name shops like little professor books and woolworth's. here, kids can cruise past beautiful fountains in front of tiffany's. i wonder what kind of salary i'd have to make to live comfortably in this area. turns out the government pay scale here is only a few hundredths of a percentage more than the scale in houston. i could work for nasa out here, and make the same amount of money but live in a much more expensive area. that doesn't seem to make much sense.

emily (my new friend from utah--no, she's not mormon) is raving about the sopranos, which is on tv tonight. i've never seen it, but i suppose i'll head over and watch it with her.

carter sent me an email this morning saying he was going to the game this afternoon...and i'm sure alex and iffy are there too. i wish i could go. that's the thing i miss most about fall at georgia tech...football season. i just can't get into the stanford team, not while i love my yellow jackets. so we're playing clemson at the moment, and losing 7-6. agh! godsey just threw an interception. we better get our butts in gear.

you know, i suppose i should stop referring to tech as "we," since i don't go there anymore. hmm. i think that's one change that will take a long time.

(5:07 p.m.)

aaaagh! i can't believe we lost that game! and in overtime! i am so disappointed. we should have been on top of the acc right now, cruising along... now i guess the florida state game--and the fact that it had to be rescheduled for december--becomes crucial. the fsu/clemson game will also be an important one to watch...i hope the elder bowden wins out over the son.

anyway. football aside, the weekend is going well. last night nick and i headed over to a big grad student party in rains (another apartment complex). it was a lot of fun, and i met so many interesting people. i talked to this guy named neal that i met at dinner the other night, and i'm going to have to track him down again because he was fun to talk to. a side note that i know will be of interest to becca and karen is that he is here on a hertz fellowship. yep, that's right, the one that we all applied for...and subsequently got rejected for. none of us even got interviews. the fact that i didn't get it is no sweat off my back, but i am interested to find out what's so different or unique about this guy that won him this extremely selective (read: no one knows what the hell the criteria for selection is) fellowship.

i also got to talk to christina yesterday! :) i was very happy to finally hear her voice, after days of meaning to call her and then realizing it was either too late at night, or having my phone conk out on me. (they seriously need to put in a few more connections here...i am constantly getting that annoying "system busy" message.) anyway, we had fun conversation, and i can't wait until she and chris come to visit in the spring sometime.

there is another party tonight in nick's dorm, so until then i'm just hanging around my apartment cleaning and unpacking the final round of boxes from home that arrived yesterday. we ran some errands this afternoon, and discovered many exciting things in the palo alto area, including:

1. the most bizarre electronics superstore i've ever seen, complete with cowboy/western motif
2. a really good pizza place, where i cursed at the tv until the ucla/oregon state game finally ended and they switched the feed to overtime at the tech game, and then cursed some more when we lost
3. a fantastic car wash that left nick's mustang in true california condition--top down and sparkling
4. a grocery store that sells hard liquor (apparently it's legal in california), so now we can make daquiris tonight

   so yeah, i guess i can say that life in california continues to go well. seeing atlanta on tv for those few minutes was nice though. hee.

for the first time, i am seeing the overprotective older sister appear as i worry about katie. this whole thing just makes me doubt. i've decided that maybe it's not odd for me to be so scrutinizing. honesty is usually the best policy, so i was honest and said i'm worried. i am wearing my dad's squinty eyed "hmmmm" face.

my diary entries from here have become boring. life is good these days, but simultaneously weird. it still feels temporary, like i'm going to be moving again soon. i haven't gotten used to the fact that i actually attend school here now. i miss my friends, even as i meet more new people each day. i just miss them, not so much of a pain anymore, but a persistent dull ache. i miss my friends. and last night's new turn of events has made the feeling more pronounced.

anyway. today was nice...beautiful weather yet again, and i met with my advisor and am pumped about it. i was so happy to see that i'd been assigned to dr. cantwell. he tests rockets. ha! that's all i have to say. he tests rockets. that is so cool, and it's exactly what i hoped to do here as a grad student. he said i can work for him in the winter or spring, after i take this first quarter to get settled into the department and stanford.

as far as my class schedule goes...well, it looks like i will be doing a fair amount of review this fall. i guess it was to be expected; after all, not everyone comes into the program with an undergraduate background in aerospace, so while i'm reviewing, others will be learning the material for the first time. the only class that promises to truly challenge me is the computational fluid dynamics course, since i've never done cfd before. but yes becca, it does sound a lot like junior year at tech. and believe me, i wouldn't touch structures with a twenty-foot pole if i didn't have too, but unfortunately, we are required to take one structures course. so this is it, and then i will be done with that god-awful part of engineering.

anyway. had my first piano class today and i think it's just about at the right level. we learned major scales, which i know from playing the flute but didn't know how to play "properly" on the piano. plus, the tunes he assigned us for homework are just about at my rudimentary skill level. should be fun.

ok, this is a completely separate entry for today, but i had to go and write it because i was so surprised to learn the following...

so i went to my second audition for the stanford flute ensemble tonight. (i had to do a second audition because the first one wasn't actually with the woman who runs the ensemble...so tonight was the first night i'd ever met her, and she wanted to hear everyone, hence the "second" audition.) anyway. so i played, and sight read, and afterwards i stayed for a few minutes chatting with the woman who directs the ensemble, karen. it turns out that two of the women who heard me play at my first audition on tuesday are widely-renowned in the flute world. one was alexandra hawley, who it turns out is quite accomplished, having made many recordings and studied under great flutists. the other was alexandra's mother, francis blaisdell, who was the first woman to ever graduate from julliard and one of the first women to play a wind instrument in a symphony orchestra--in the late 1930s; she's played with the new york philharmonic and new york ballet. her name is up there with the top flutists in the world!!

so i was shocked and amazed to learn this, and so incredibly humbled to think that i played my piddly piece in front of someone so utterly huge in the flute world. since i have never delved into the professional world of flute playing, i was totally and completely unaware of the caliber of teachers the music department here at stanford has. i was just blown away, and so even as karen contined telling me more about the ensemble, i sat there looking at her with my mouth wide open in amazement.

i am so glad i didn't find out who francis and alexandra were until after my audition!! if i'd known, i don't think my nerves would have let me play a single note.

I CANNOT GET OVER HOW BEAUTIFUL IT IS HERE!

yes. so did i mention how nice it is here? classes could be great, or they could be awful, and it would still be wonderful here because of the scenery and the weather. everyone reading this must come visit me. my spring break is march 23-april 1. or you can come anytime. i'll just stay here and host one big california party.

classes started today. i went to five of them, and should end up taking four of those. plus one more on tuesday/thursday. my mondays and wednesdays will suck, but what can ya do? so, in the case someone might actually be interested, i'm taking: aa210a (compressible flow), aa240a (intro to structures), aa214a (numerical methods in computational fluid dynamics), me200a (linear algebra, basically), and e105 (feedback control systems). from looking at the syllabus for each class, it seems like i'm going to be doing a lot of review this first quarter...i recognized practically every topic from something we did in undergrad classes at tech, except for the cfd class. oh, and then my sixth class is music12b--introductory piano!

tomorrow night is a meeting for the stanford daily...so i figure i'll go check it out. they don't have a daily entertainment section, but maybe i'll see if i can write some reviews. another option is to apply to be a columnist...to do so, i have to submit two 500-700 word articles as well as 10 column ideas. if you have any suggestions, please let me know! i was thinking of submitting two of my old technique editorials, but i need help with the 10 ideas.

i have a 2nd audition for the flute ensemble tomorrow, since the women who were listening yesterday aren't the ones who are actually in charge of the group. i have to prepare a solo...yikes! i need to practice! good thing i only have one class tomorrow. i am really nervous. somehow i get the feeling this group is really good, and much more serious than the informal flute choir we had going at tech...

i am tired. i've been tired ever since i got here. when i'm in a new situation and find myself not quite sure what to do, i tend to wander aimlessly or sit in my room surfing the web...and staying up late, for no reason. yeah, i've got to quit the whole staying-up-late-for-no-reason thing.

anyway, i don't know if i'm going to meet my goal of being completely unpacked and settled before classes start tomorrow or not. it'll be down to the wire for sure. sadly, i think i'll probably still have a few things (or maybe a lot) floating around looking for a place in the room when i head out to durand (the aero/astro building) tomorrow.

nevertheless, today was very productive, despite the fact that my advisor didn't stick to the office hours he had posted, and thus i couldn't meet with him. i had a yummy lunch in tressider (the union), got some questions answered in the aa (aero/astro) department, signed up for piano lessons, auditioned for the flute ensemble, and figured out what classes i should go to tomorrow (since my advisor skipped out before i tracked him down so he could tell me what classes i should take...argh). tonight a group of us are checking out breakers, an "eating club" here. it's like a (cheaper) alternative to the dining hall, where we commit 2 hours each week to cooking or cleaning, and in return we get dinner sunday-friday and a key to access the fully-stocked kitchen for breakfast and lunch. i could probably fend for myself here in my apartment, but i think breakers may be a more social way to go. we'll see.

i was sitting here listening to music and checking my email when i had the impulse to read last week's technique. bad idea. oh, how the memories came flooding back! as i find more and more things to like about the san francisco bay area, i am consumed by thoughts of deadline nights long past. {sigh} i guess it will probably be like this for a while.

tomorrow my academic life at stanford begins with the dreaded "orientation." in truth, i'm rather looking forward to it. meeting the students i'll be spending the next nine months studying with...figuring out what classes i'll be taking and what my schedule will be...finding a professor to do some research for... in the end, i'm just anxious to get back to the ol' going-to-school routine that feels so natural to me. i'm done settling in; i'm ready to get started.

yesterday i met my aunt laura, formerly known as jane. she lives up in sonoma, in the wine country...my dad hadn't seen her since 1977, and i'd never met her. she looks so much like my grandmother.

then today we drove across the bay to berkeley to have dinner with my dad's cousin ann and her husband and daughter anna...i guess anna is a second cousin, as close as we could figure, and ann is a first cousin once removed. they were so cool! i definitely want to go visit them again.

anyway, i'm tired. more later.

well...i am in california! i have a room and a bed! and i have internet access! see, that last announcement is a monumental event. i never realized how much i took for granted at georgia tech when it came to having technical things taken care of. there, i could have my computer online in 5 minutes. here, it took almost two days. i know that's not actually very long, but after having practically an iv drip of internet access into my veins at tech, it almost drove me nuts to wait more than an hour here. i was so impatient.

so i have so much to say about the bay area, and my first impressions of stanford, and especially about the drive out here, but i'm exhausted and must get some sleep. i promise stories (and pictures, once i find a place to get them developed) soon.

some part of me is still in utter disbelief. i can't stop thinking about it, or writing about it. will the country ever be able to stop reeling from what happened on tuesday? i don't know. perhaps we will be angry forever. and perhaps that is the way it should be.

my parents remember where they were when john f. kennedy was killed. i remember the moment i saw the challenger explode, sitting in my second grade classroom watching in excitement one minute, and in confusion the next. why was my teacher crying? what had happened to the shuttle?

and now we have this tragedy. the destruction of the world trade center's twin towers, the damage to the pentagon, the crash in a pennsylvania field. a defining point in history that will change our country forever. and a new generation unfortunately has their moment, the one they will never be able to forget.

i will remember the morning that i woke up, and how i usually watch the news while i eat my breakfast...but i didn't turn on the tv that day because my roommate was sleeping late and i didn't want to wake him. i'll recall the cd playing in my car, how i listened to john mayer singing instead of the radio, and so i didn't hear them break into regular programming to announce what had happened. i'll still feel how cool the morning was as i walked from my car into my building. i'll think of getting off the elevator and turning the corner, and seeing gavin walking towards me. i'll hear the lump in his throat as he asked me, "have you seen the news?" "no, what's happened?" "two planes crashed into the world trade center." how i didn't even put down my bag and coffee. how i rushed into greg's office only to see flames rising from the pentagon, which had just been hit.

how will i tell my children and my grandchildren about september 11? when they read their history book and come home to ask: "mom, do you remember when new york and washington were attacked?" or "grandmother, how was it possible for something so terrible to happen?"

i can say that buildings and businesses everywhere we evacuated, and that i was sent home from work as the center went to threatcon delta. i can show them the email from my aunt, reassuring us that my cousin aaron, who lives in new york, thankfully wasn't in lower manhattan tuesday morning. i can explain how quiet and eerie it was to step outside and not hear a single airplane flying high overheard. i can tell them about the former co-op and acquaintance of mine who had just walked into tower two when the second plane hit, and how he turned and ran.

i can tell them the stories, and read the old headlines...but how can i ever convey the emotions of that day and those following? the feeling of an entire nation in mourning? there just aren't words to convey the magnitude of the pain, sadness, and outrage.

this article by miami herald columnist leonard pitts jr. is the best reaction i have read so far, and the one i most closely share. i will show my children that article, and i will show my children these diary entries. i will hope that they never experience what we have.

i don't know if we will ever get back to "normal," or back to the way things used to be. it took me much longer than usual to get to work today, as the cars were backed up all down nasa road one while security officers at the gate checked every badge on every person in every car. random vehicles were searched. my building is the home of mission control and the most critical building onsite; the parking lots were emptied as a security precaution. in the lobby, i was stopped by security and my bag was opened and checked. on any day before tuesday, i would have been annoyed at the inconvenience. from now on, i will be grateful for the fact that someone is trying to make my life safer.

the faa has reopened the skies, but most airlines are keeping themselves grounded. i don't know whether to hope that my dad is able to fly here tomorrow or hope that he isn't allowed to get on an airplane. with all the flights that occur in this country each day, my fear that something will happen on his particular flight seems irrational...nonetheless, it is very real.

i haven't packed anything yet. my dad would be upset with me if he knew that. yesterday was supposed to be my last day of work, and i was going to pack today and tomorrow. when we unexpectedly had the past two days off, i should have used them to pack. but i didn't. i just watched tv, and read magazines, and spent a lot of time just being with people.

people keep coming into my office and saying "oh, you're here," which is weird to me. what would they expect? did they think i would leave town without cleaning out my desk? without turning in my paperwork? without giving bini a recap of what i've done, and what she'll be expected to do on the jettison design project? so yes, i'm at work, at least until early afternoon. i've talked to bini, so that's one item down, two to go.

(10:37 p.m.)

packing is going very well. usually it stresses me out a lot, but today i've gotten myself into complete throw-away mode, and am tossing stuff into trashbags left and right. i've cut three boxes and maybe one laundry basket out of what i brought down here in my car. i can always buy a new laundry basket in california; it's probably easier than trying to bring the one i have.

i got a co-op award. after five tours, i'd given up on the idea of ever getting one and resigned myself to the fact that it's not really a matter of the work you do, but of whether you happen to be in a group that's motivated enough to give co-op awards. i guess the sixth time's the charm, though i don't think it's purely coincidence that i got a co-op award for the tour i liked the best. i worked harder this tour than i ever have, and it's because i liked what i was doing and was motivated to get as much done as i could. in any case, i was very flattered and happy to get the award.

i didn't really know what would happen when i woke up this morning, hoping against all hope that yesterday was just a bad dream. and it wasn't. it wasn't.

there are rumors that the center might be closed again tomorrow, that i'll be staying home again. i hope not. eventually, we have to get away from the tv and from those images, and we have to cope with what has happened, and we have to go on with life. the longer this tragedy keeps the country at a crawl, the greater the "victory" become for the terrorists.

today was supposed to be my last day of work, but monsters kept that from happening. instead, i'm going to try to just carry on. i'm going to go out to lunch. i'm going to pack up my things in preparation for moving to california. i'm going to watch the news a little.

we've got to keep on keeping on.

i don't even know what to say. i don't know how to sit here and even attempt to write about today. i glance through other diaries to find that everyone writes about the same thing. we are unified in our pain and our anger, and in our sorrow.

i cannot comprehend what's going on in the world right now. i can't imagine new york without the twin towers. i can't fathom what it must be like to be in new york or washington tonight. i can't watch the video of that huge commecial jet plowing into the building without being shocked and angered every time, every replay, every angle.

we were sent home from work just before 10 this morning, and i'll be at home again tomorrow since the center is only reopening to "essential personnel" and i am not one of those. they'll be checking every car and every person, with metal detectors and dogs. i usually forget the fact that i am an employee of the federal government. that i work on government property in government buildings. it is a shock to be reminded that the country i work for, and the country i love, is so powerfully hated by others.

i am angry, i am horrified, i am saddened. i am shocked, traumatized, worried, and anguished. i am pissed off, and i am scared. i wonder how something like this can happen. i wonder how four planes can have been hijacked in one morning, how anyone managed to coordinate such a vicious and unimaginable attack. i wonder who could have so much disregard for human life that they'd want to do something like this, to cause such destruction, to harm so many innocent civilians, to conduct what is practically an act of war. to ground every airplane. to force evacuations in every major city. to bring this country to a grinding halt.

i called my dad, and my mom, and my sister. it's not like they need to know that i'm ok because nothing happened here in houston. i don't know why i felt the need to call them, but i did.

and now i sit and watch and listen and breathe along with an entire nation. i pray for the people who were injured, and killed, and those who knew them. and along with the rest of the world, i grieve.

i was going to comment on how fall may have finally arrived in houston and how, after raining all day yesterday, it is actually cool and pleasant outside this morning. then i read becca's diary and saw that in switzerland, she's already having to deal with temperatures that my southern butt considers "winter."

anyway. switzerland aside, it really is nice and cool here this morning. and i finally realized the reason for all the rain--it's just that it's september in houston. it always rains in september in houston. i haven't been here during the fall since my very first co-op tour in 1997, and i'd just forgotten. ron reminded me. {sigh} rain. in any case, i can't wait to get to palo alto, where the weather has been a constant 75 degrees all summer. i was talking to nicole, a co-op from stanford, and she says in the winter it gets down in the upper 40s, but rarely any colder. maybe i'll just stay in the san francisco area forever...it sounds like the weather there is just the way i like it.

so my sister made a surprise stop at home yesterday, on her way back from the gt game in annapolis. my mom told me about it over the phone, and it made me laugh. my dad said he was very confused when he looked out the window and saw randy mcdow. that made me laugh even harder. randy mcdow! at my house! come on, that is just funny. mom was so happy to hear that the feighs had all been at the game, and brought food for the visiting ps kids. i, on the other hand, just thought "typical feigh" and smiled. i wish i could've been at the game.

with my exit pitch done, i'm not really sure what i'm going to do at work for the next three days. i could continue my project, but i wouldn't really be able to make any headway in three days, and by trying, i might actually make the transition of the project much worse for bini, the new co-op in my group. so i'll sit and pass time emailing and cleaning up my desk. actually, i probably should write up some sort of document about what i did this summer, and summarize the changes to the postprocessor code... yeah, i guess i could do that. off i go.

so curt decided last night that i'm the one. too bad i'm leaving this weekend.

it's raining again. i wanted to run outside, but it's that kind of rain that's not a downpour, but more than a drizzle, and leaves lot of puddles. so even though i love running in the rain, i figured i wouldn't have been able to run without coming home with soaked shoes. so i went on the treadmill instead, and watched mtv replay the video music awards for the umpteenth time.

my mentor rich is in chicago this weekend, and went to the cubs-braves game today. unfortunately for him, but happily for me, the braves won and completed the 3-game sweep. i don't know if rich stayed through the rain delay or not...the weather there looked about as dismal as here. it's sort of a shame in a way. he's a huge cubs fan, but had never been to wrigley field. i kinda wish it could have been a better day, and a better game, for him. ah well. you can't win them all.

listening to: counting crows, "mr. jones"

for the first time in a while, i've spent the afternoon simply hanging out in my room and rediscovering the joys of my mp3 collection. "...and i might just stay inside today..." doing laundry. making lunch. watching tv. reading (lord of the rings, 2nd book). cleaning my room, or beginning to pack, depending on how you want to look at it.

listening to: bif naked, "lucky"

so tech won big today. bigger than big...they won enormously. humungously. they handed navy their worst defeat ever, 70-7. everything pales in comparison to next week though, when we play florida state. they're saying this is our year. they're saying fsu is beatable. they're saying we're the team to do it. the game's nationally televised, but i'll be stuck in a car somewhere between houston and albequerque--talk about frustration! i hope i can pick it up on the radio.

listening to: eve6, "how much longer"

today is co-op initiation for the new guys. we made them meet us at 8:00 this morning and gave them the packet of clues for the traditional scavenger hunt. after we watched them leave, phil and i picked up ron and joined emily and whitley and molly for some donuts at krispy kreme. mmm. then i came home and went back to sleep! anyway, it's always a fun time for new guys, i think. you learn your way around houston, and you get to know your group well. one of the clues this time was to come to our apartment and get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a reference to our co-op lunch voting a few weeks ago, so we even had some people stop by. it was fun to listen to how their day is going.

listening to: lifehouse, "sick cycle carousel"

i can hardly believe i have only one week left in houston. for a summer that started so quietly, it has passed quickly. i don't know where this one ranks with co-op tours past; i have enjoyed work much more, but my social life has been...well, just quieter. not bad, just less busy. i've been talking so much lately about wanting to settle down somewhere, and in some senses, my summer has been like that--i've gotten into a comfortable routine, and spend time with some fun people. more importantly, i set aside time for myself. i had forgotten how much i like to read. i discovered the getting semi-regular exercise makes me feel a lot better about myself, and a lot less tired physically. i found out how much more satisfied i am with life in general when i like what i do at work. it's been good.

listening to: tool, "schism"

i love my roommates. they are great at boosting my ego. ;) the other night, we were sitting around watching sportscenter and phil was talking about the tool concert that they bought tickets for today. so i said "oh, tool, they do that song that goes like this, right?" and i proceeded to sing part of "schism." a few minutes later, they had moved on to talking about disturbed, and i interjected a line of "down with the sickness." at that point, phil turned to ron and said "dude, she is the coolest woman alive." {happy sigh} here's a picture of me and philly on roommate bonding night. we played risk and did shots of vodka.

listening to: matchbox twenty, "angry"

the matchbox twenty concert is tonight. i sort of wanted to go, but when i asked around a month or so ago, i couldn't find anyone to go with me. in the end, it turned out ok because it's also initiation day like i mentioned earlier, and there's the party afterwards. i may go down to bolivar with that group for the beach bonfire...or i may go to bar houston with curt. i'm leaning towards the bar. i want to spend time with curt, and i haven't gotten my groove on in a while anyway. ;)

listening to: doria roberts, "perfect"

ah, i like this song. i can never listen to it without thinking of christina. i haven't talked to her since last weekend, so i actually need to call her sometime soon and see how she's doing. this weekend, she and jenny were hoping to make a trip up to chattanooga and go to the aquarium and see how they can manage away from the hospital. and tomorrow's the 9th, so she be moving from inpatient to outpatient, which i think is very exciting. i wish i could go back to atlanta again this weekend and see her.

listening to: dixie chicks, "let 'er rip"

ah, now the dixie chicks. that was a fun concert, when i went a year ago with alisa. we yelled and screamed and sang along and danced in the aisles. i left feeling crazy and energetic and talkative, and if i remember correctly, somehow that night i ended up with carter at waffle house spewing my thoughts on anything and everything. in retrospect, he probably thought i was being really strange, but what i remember most about that night is how good i felt.

listening to: james taylor, "mexico"

anyway. i'm gonna get back to cleaning/packing/chilling with my roomies.

the other day karen asked what it's like to deal with constant rain. fortunately, i don't have to answer this question because the rain finally stopped, or at least slowed. yesterday we had the normal late afternoon thundershower, and then it was back to normal. sunny and humid. i don't know which is better--rain or shine. rain makes it cooler outside, but wet (duh). shine makes it hot and sticky.

maybe i'll just move to san francisco. yeah, that's it.

anyway. daniel sent me some pictures of us at the football game last weekend. my sister and me, kevin, alex (a.k.a. "that guy"), jelly, chris...you can see them all. these photos make me smile; i love having friends on photography staff who can waste a couple frames on us.

(10:26 a.m.)

my officemate is amusing. his name is gil, and he's probably in his 60s, and i think he's become obsessed with ebay. i hear him on the phone every day talking to someone about what he found on ebay, and whether there's a reserve price or not, and how much time is left in the bidding. whenever i hear anyone mention ebay, i always think of alex and the crazy things he used to buy off there (actually, he probably still does). anyway, he got these two t-shirts one time that had the front page of some tabloid on them. one shirt said "bat child escapes!" and had this scary picture of a cross between a kid and a bat. the other had pictures of various congressmen along with the headline "aliens in the senate!" or something like that. i think there's probably nothing that you can't find on ebay if you look hard enough.

(4:19 p.m.)

ahhh. my exit pitch is over, and it went really well. this is the first tour i ever really liked my group, and the first tour i ever really liked my project. it's been a good summer.

listening to: eve 6, "rescue"

so the diaryland server was down earlier, and i couldn't update as usual. even worse was the fact that i couldn't get my morning fix of becca and karen's diaries. ah, the horror! ;)

on tuesday night i finally saw the episode of frasier that courtney, kent, carter, carissa, tyler and i saw being taped in los angeles back in march. we were sitting around debbie's apartment when someone remarked that this must be a new frasier episode, but i said, "it can't be, because i've seen it before." that's when i realized where i'd seen it. the episode originally aired in may, but we missed it because we were in europe. anyway, it was neat. i listened for our laughs, but the laugh track was pretty indistinctive. oh well.

it's after 6:00 and i'm still at work. my exit pitch is tomorrow, and i'm still adding data and graphs to it. i've never come so down to the wire, but then again, i've never had such a cool project that i wanted to finish so badly.

nick brought me a whole bag of reese's peanut butter cups. this is bad. they are staring at me, silently screaming "eat me!!!" argh. last night i went running again, and actually enjoyed myself. normally i don't like running at all--every moment is agony, and the only reason i do it is because of the adrenaline rush and sense of triumph i get when i'm done. but last night was ok, and so i'll try to go again tonight. i want to be able to get on some kind of schedule, like james in his consultant-ish and ordered life. it'd be nice.

anyway. i have a few more things to finish on my exit pitch, then i'm going home. good night.

last night we had dinner at debbie's house. nick, debbie, brienne, mark, and myself. she moved in not too long ago, and her place looks just fantastic--curtains, a full set of furniture, pictures hanging on the walls, kitchen stocked with utensils and hardware...she's even got a massage chair. we cooked. some kind of pasta casserole, and crescent rolls. brienne brought fresh-baked brownies for dessert. we ate, we laughed, we talked about work. as we cleaned up, nick laughed and said "does this mean we're adults? the fact that we're starting to invite each other over for dinner?" it was a good question.

since graduating, most days i am tempted to give school only one more year of my life. get this master's degree, and then find something permanent. something that would allow me to get an apartment, or a house, and come home to its comfortable walls day after day. make new friends, and real friends. friends that i know i won't have to leave unless i make the conscious choice to do so. it's not that the friends i will always have in atlanta aren't real; they are my life, and have made me who i am. instead, it's just that i don't want to go through the extraordinary pain of saying goodbye to them or people like them ever again. i long for the stability of normal, post-college life. yet every muscle is straining to get back to school.

"we're not adults. we're just not in college anymore," i said as nick dropped me off back at home at the end of the evening.

no big differences these days, just the same old walkaways...

listening to: dido, "thank you"

"it's not usually my style to send emails like this to more than one person at a time, but today i am making an exception. i write about beingsad and depressed much more effectively than i do about being happy and grateful, so i apologize in advance if you find this too sappy, even though i'm trying not to make it so.

"anyway, here are the top 3 (yes, only 3) things i realized this weekend:

1. it is good that i decided not to stay at tech for graduate school. though i've only been gone for 4 months, it felt a little weird to walk around campus. i was rather surprised to find that i felt like i don't really belong there anymore, not as a student. also, this morning i tried to login to acme, and found that my gt account has been deleted. that's a good sign that i'm not expected on the doorstep of 225 north avenue anymore.
2. on the other hand, life outside of gt grad school would have been great if i'd stayed in atlanta, because i would get to see all of you more often. it was really wonderful to see everyone, and i've never felt as popular as i did over the past four days when you all kept calling to see what i was up to. i wish i could have made the days even longer, and i'm sorry i couldn't spend more time with each of you. special thanks to those of you who drove me around town, and let me crash on your floors and couches.
3. in the end, the fact that i'm crossing the country to go to grad school doesn't matter, because i know that each time i come back to atlanta, at least some of you will be there. and after this weekend, i now know that you guys make it incredibly easy to pick up right where we left off.

"trying to put a 'personal touch' on an email being sent to 14 people is a difficult task, and i probably haven't accomplished it here. in any case, i just wanted to let everyone know what a great weekend i had, and how much fun it was to spend time with each of you.

"i'll keep in touch from the west coast...and visitors are always welcome. ;)

-sarah"

(2:30 p.m.)

oh my lord, it is raining again. at lunch, i saw the sun and it brightened my spirits, only to have them dashed again when i glanced out the window a moment ago. when will it stop raining?

i'm playing the waiting game again today. waiting for my sims to run. waiting on the computer. in a half hour or so, i'll be done with wording my exit pitch and making most of the slides...and then i'll just be waiting, waiting for my runs to finish so i can include the data in my pitch. dry run tomorrow. final presentation on friday. three days next week to document everything i've done so that the other co-op knows where to pick up and what to do.

nick just brought me reese's cups and said he missed me over the weekend. we see each other only in passing during the day, but when one of us is missing, the day feels a little emptier.

i told him i'm ready to go to california. karen wrote something in her journal the other day about how she was ready to "retreat to the safety of academia." i feel it too. i'm ready to get back to class. i'm very nervous that i won't be able to keep up, but nevertheless, every bone in my body is yearning to break free of this boring beige desk and these drab halls and get back to school. life feels more normal to me when all the days are something different.