February 2002 Archives

quick summary of today. speedy discussion of heroes, then off to class. lunch at breakers with nick and the hilarious swedish guys sitting outside in the warm sun under a carolina blue and utterly cloudless sky. dragged myself back to durand to work on homework. more class. seminar. more homework. lovely dinner, with ice cream for dessert. watching survivor with emily. back to durand for more homework and a group meeting. to cromem to say hi to nick. ended up going over to toyon to dance for 45 minutes, waltz to polka to swing. back to cromem for a little more homework. chilly late night bike ride home. shower. bed.

tomorrow/today is march! i love march. :)

the full moon rising tonight was absolutely beautiful...it was slightly cloudy, so there was a large ring around it. it lit up the sky. i am still in disbelief of the weather...every day seems to get nicer and nicer. it's still february, and for the past week and a half it's been warm enough for shorts and tank tops at lunchtime. this afternoon i had about 5 minutes between lunch and class, and i took full advantage of it by laying in the grass in the sun with emily. it felt so good.

i am having trouble motivating myself to go running. the fact that my legs have been aching, combined with the fact that i have been stuck on my current weight for about a week now after losing 5 pounds in the 3 weeks before that have made me feel very "blah" about running. however, tonight was better. i tried jen's tiptoe stretch and i think it may have helped my shin splints a bit. and i talked to katie just before i left, so she gave me the requisite "go sarah!" and off i went. 4.2 miles tonight, in 47:27. slower than the ~10:30 pace i have been doing lately, but i will work on speeding up.

besides the weather and running, my two default topics of late, there's really not much to say. i desperately need to get started on the propulsion homework, but it's hard to do it when john says we can turn it in "whenever." i'm just looking forward to the end of the week, and viennese ball!

long, somewhat sucky day. it began with propulsion class and ended with e206 homework, trying to design an ugly-as-hell compensator for our system. we ended up needing three leads and a notch filter. YUCK. anyway, that's boring to most people so i won't go into the details.

i did, however, have an hour this afternoon to go back over to the mall, and i found a dress at bloomingdale's that i like better than the red one i bought last week. this one is black, so it's not quite as exciting color-wise, however, the cut is much more flattering. it is a one-shoulder deal so that is pretty cool, and then it is long and flowy and will be very swirly and pretty when i whirl around the dance floor. i decided that black is just as good as red, and anyway, i didn't have a single formal dress until now, so it's probably a good idea to have one in basic black before i get anything else. black is just more flattering to me, with my wide hips and all. lovely. anyway, i'll make sure i get pictures of nick in his tails and me in my dress so you can all ooh and aah. ;)

it's late and i'm tired, so off to bed.

i forgot to update yesterday. weird.

actually, i can describe most of yesterday as just that--weird. i woke up at noon but was stuck in one of those groggy lethargic states that i just couldn't seem to shake. i went out to lunch at jing jing's with emily and helped her pick out a new watch at nordstrom's, but i didn't have the energy to drag her along as i searched for another dress for viennese ball this friday. i am having second thoughts about the red dress i bought last week. i think i would rather have something not quite so...loud. anyway, i'm going to head over to the mall again this afternoon to look.

i came home, watched canada get their gold medals and the u.s. get their silvers for hockey, then talked to becca on the phone for forever. after a while aaron interrupted, saying he was going over to durand to work on phatman, and so i sad goodbye to becca and joined him in the lab. we needed to find the moments of inertia for the thing...ugh, complicated stuff that i don't remember how to do.

after that it was dinner time, and then dishes time, and then tv time with emily and susan. i had promised neal i would go to flicks last night but i really didn't feel like it...after all, i was still being lethargic. but i did promise, and so i went. they were showing spy game, which is a fairly entertaining movie and i didn't mind watching it again. i managed to forget about all the homework that i should have been doing instead, so it worked. afterward i headed to nick's room and talked to him for a while, then finally headed home to bed. i only got 6 hours of sleep, so i am tired today. i wish i were a person that could survive on less than 8 hours of sleep, but unfortunately, i'm not.

this morning in dance class we reviewed club two step and worked on polka some more. we learned the basic step for polka on friday, and at first i was amused because i have always thought of polka as a dorky old people's dance. but i must admit--it is really fun. galloping and whirling around the room is quite entertaining, and it makes everyone smile and laugh, so it's a very cheerful dance to do. i am getting pumped for viennese ball, even if i will be one of the worst dancers there. it will be fun anyway. i like dancing with nick; he is really good. there is also this guy in my class named bernardo who is a great lead; i love it when i end up next to him and get to dance with him when we change partners.

(11:33 p.m.)

i went on a short run tonight, 2.5 miles. i think i have reached a turning point in my running...it used to be that when i ran, i was limited by my cardiovascular fitness. my body felt fine, but i would be gasping for breath and have to take walking breaks. these days, i could carry on a normal conversation if i were running with someone because i don't get too out of breath, but now my legs have become quite a sore point. they ache. i am thinking i just need to stretch a bit more before i go running, or perhaps warm up with a brisk half mile walk before i break into a run. we'll see.

tonight though, i was interrupted halfway through my run by the guy i have a crush on. silly me, i thought it was past, but alas, i discovered that it's not. he's so cool. he stood there talking to me while i was all sweaty and gross. ugh, what a time to run into him. ah well.

i ran in my third race this morning. this one was here in palo alto i thought i had signed up for a 5k, but when i got there i found out that the race was actually a 5 mile race, an 8k. my initial reaction was "oh no!" because i had never run 5 miles before--the longest run i've done in as long as i can remember is about 4.5 miles, and that was on a day when i was really feeling good and motivated. so i was worried. but then i just sort of said "what the hell?" and went to the starting line.

i started slow, knowing that i would be going 2 miles farther than what i'm used to. slow and steady, like the tortoise, that's me. i passed the 2 mile marker in 23 minutes...11:30 per mile and about 40-50 seconds slower than my usual pace. however, i kept plodding along, and i think i must have accomplished one of those "negative splits" that you hear runners talking about--where you run the second half of the race faster than the first half--because i finished in a flat 55 minutes, 11 minutes per mile.

so my first try at the 8k distance went swimmingly, and gives me a lot of hope that pretty soon i'll be able to run a 10k! that would be cool.

in other news, it's already been a good phone connection day. it's only 1:00 and i've already talked to both carter and christina. i still owe daniel and becca call-backs.

(3:03 p.m.)

i always find the olympics so inspiring. i find myself glued to the tv for sports that i usually ignore, like short track speed skating and nordic combined skiing. yesterday i watched the entire us-russia hockey game and was on the edge of my seat for the entire third period as the players went frantically for the puck...and can't wait to watch the gold medal game tomorrow. how cool it must be to be an olympian!

(12:58 a.m.)

today has just been the best day. the race and talking to friends like i already mentioned...then later on i watched moulin rouge, which i have been wanting to see for a while, and i also talked to chris, and then neal called and i talked to him and promised to go to flicks tomorrow night with him. and then kristof called and asked if i wanted to go see a chamber ensemble from academy of st. martin in the fields perform. well of course i did, so he and i headed to the auditorium for that, which was wonderful, and then we headed over to tressider where we met up with nick and emily and valerie and half of breakers--daniel, sean, michael, alex, ana--for a swing dance put on by the graduate student union. it was great! i was amazed that someone asked me to dance every single song...i had to purposely sit out a few times just because i needed a rest! i also met some interesting people...a crazy russian guy, and a cute french guy named yoann. (what an interesting name!) and nick taught me charleston and the shim sham, even though i am not really very good at either so far. i will have to practice.

just a fantastic day. it's like everyone i know, and some people i don't, conspired to make me feel really popular and help me have a wonderful day. and it worked. heh. i guess it's just an ideal example of one of those days when "everything seems to go your way..." ahh. i almost don't want to go to bed! however, i am exhaused. ;) g'night.

karen talks a lot about the crazy, ever-changing weather she experiences over in england. i, on the other hand, am relishing the constant atmosphere here....sunny, cool, and completely gorgeous. someone told me back in the fall that spring here begins on valentine's day, and that has proved true so far. with the exception of some rain last weekend, the days have been picture-perfect, and the nights cool and comfortable. this afternoon i rode around campus on my bike for almost 45 minutes, just because i couldn't bear the thought of going inside. when i finally got home, i opened the window wide and left the heavy doors open to let the day come in through the screens. it's absolutely beatiful today.

so i watched the women's figure skating tonight with my roommates. if anyone had come in the door, they probably would have burst out laughing. there we sat, the three of us all on the couch, biting our nails and giggling nervously and fidgeting with anxiety...all over a competition whose outcome had already been decided, but we didn't check the results online because it would spoil the surprise! we were so funny. anyway, i feel sorry for michelle kwan, but so excited for sarah hughes! she was so cute, and so gracious, and skated so beautifully! she certainly did win the long program tonight, and deserves that gold medal.

before skating, i went running. it was a good run, but i felt very uninspired. i have been having problems motivating myself this week, and the fact that i've been having recent troubles with shin splints hasn't helped. if anyone knows a good method of dealing with shin splints, please let me know. they used to be a problem back in the summer, but then i started stretching before running and they faded...but this week they have returned. ow. maybe i've slacked off in my stretching routine...

i made an attempt at filling out my nasa paperwork today, the stuff required for setting up movers and getting reimbursed for mileage and stuff. it was a hopeless cause. government paperwork is so hard to understand. i'm just going to call them tomorrow and have someone go through the process with me. i have a lot of questions...like can i get things moved from both california and north carolina, will they pay for a rental car when i go to houston to apartment hunt, when is my start date, etc etc. hopefully everything will work out to my satisfaction, but since it is, after all, the government, i am prepared for some hassle. we'll see.

glad tomorrow's friday! i finally bought billy elliot on dvd and have told nick that he is required to watch it this weekend. he's never seen it. i know he'll love it.

oh good lord, people. becca complained, i don't know how seriously, that she wasn't listed as one of my "phone people." i knew i shouldn't have written specific things about my friends, but it's already done. anyway. it's not that certain people are phone people for me....it's more like i am not a phone person. i have always sort of shunned talking on the phone in favor of either face-to-face or email. i've just never been able to talk on the phone and find it as enjoyable as talking in person, or having the time to "perfectly" compose my thoughts like you can do with email. but these days i do a lot of phone calling out of necessity, since face-to-face is impossible most of the time. still, i find that i am usually not the one that does the calling, as i sit and wait for others to call me. the only exception is kent, because i know that if i don't call him, he will probably never call me because he is weird like that.

anyway. even though i am rarely the caller, i have sort of grown to enjoy the occasional calls from friends. even you, becca. ;)

(12:11 a.m.)

inspired by watching all of the speed skating on tv tonight at the olympics, i went rollerblading tonight for the first time in a year and a half...for the first time since i dislocated my knee warming up for roller hockey one night in houston. it was nice. i was sort of unsteady on my feet at first, and the uneven pavement around here certainly didn't help. but when i got over to california avenue, the pavement smoothed out a bit, and there were plenty of nice parking lots to skate in, and practice my braking and turning skills. it was fun. perhaps i will skate to class someday. i think rollerblading requires more endurance than bike riding, and maybe even more than running...my legs get tired quickly when skating.

my question of the week is this: would you rather win an oscar or a gold medal? i'd take a gold medal any day...

i woke up this morning to find the toilet so clogged that i couldn't even fix it with the plunger, even though i spent a good five minutes trying. lovely imagery, right? i swear, i don't know what my roommates are feeding the thing.

anyway, i can't even worry about it now because i'm off to class. hopefully kate will handle it. it's gray outside again this morning...i guess gray has just been the trend for the past week. i'm not surprised--i mean, everyone has been saying that we haven't really had a normal rainy season this year--but i was really starting to get used to endless sun. nice to know that the weather isn't always nice, not even in california. but still, i want the sun back. hopefully it will reappear soon.

(8:15 p.m.)

this is a great quote (stolen from chris): "university politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." henry kissinger. very true.

i just got to talk to the kentmeister for an hour...finally, after wanting to call him for the past month, but letting school and the time difference get in the way. he sounds reasonably content with school for now, though it is not his favorite thing to do, and he is still keeping an eye open for jobs. but oh...it was so nice to talk to him. kent is the person i miss most of all. it sounds somehow mean to say that, because there are many, many people that i miss...but whenever i need a boost, it is always kent that i think of. he can always make me smile. other people are good for other things...chris and christina both make me feel loved, carter gives me pretty good advice when i have problems, jen is a great source of motivation, becca and karen are good for crazy foreign stories... but for pure smiles, it's kent.

(11:40 p.m.)

i was just watching headline news while i stretched after running, and heard a blip about how a security person at the louisville, kentucky airport--a guy who watches the x-ray machine--was fired after a national guardsman noticed that he was asleep. they rescreened over a thousand people, and 12 flights were delayed. this struck me as extremely ironic, because i have vivid memories of entering the philadelphia airport a few years ago for a flight back to houston and passing through the security checkpoint where not one but two of the people supposedly watching the x-ray machines were sound asleep. my how times have changed.

emily and i went shopping today and i got a dress for viennese ball, but i'm not sure if i'm going to keep it or not. it is red, fitted at the top and through the waist, and then poofy at the bottom. i think it may be a little too tight at the top. plus, i can't escape the thought that i really look best in black or dark blue...something a little more slimming than red. i may go back to bloomingdale's and buy a black dress that i liked.

after shopping, i spent the rest of the day going from the a/a library to dinner back to the library to flute ensemble then back to the library, and finally home. i think our plane design is finished, so tomorrow between propulsion and design class, i have to draw it. four hours should be enough time.

written in an email today: "i guess the point is that we all adjust. sooner or later. and happiness can be different things at different times."

and i do think that is true.

i think my crush is dating someone. how unfortunate.

anyway. bedtime!

the past two days have been long, gray, and quiet. somehow i have just felt...off. out of it. head in the clouds. mood in the dumps. energy fading, motivation lacking.

i went running today, but i wouldn't really call it "running." it was a struggle the entire 2.1 miles. yep, i only managed to go 2.1 miles. and i even walked some of that. i find that my runs are a good indicator of how i am feeling, and today was no exception--an utterly blah run for an utterly blah weekend.

the one bright spot was spending last night, and another few hours tonight, with nick. i sort of don't want him to go to france next year. i want him to move to houston. i am going to miss him so much. i guess most people anticipate graduating and moving on with their lives, and don't miss people like i do. it's all very strange. i wish i had realized earlier that saying goodbye is an inevitable part of life. though we all have plenty of people to fall back on when times get really rough, basically we all have to go it alone and make our own decisions and be responsible for our own happiness. i am adjusting more and more to that idea. the real clash comes when doing something besides homework would make me happy, but i am stuck studying. ;)

i want to call my friends back east and talk all day. i have been wanting to call kent for weeks now, just to hear his wonderful voice, but i haven't dialed his number. i want the comfort of ron's calm voice, but haven't sought it. i wanted to call carter all last week but didn't. i have longed to talk to christina, and chris, and daniel, but done nothing. i feel like the gap is rapidly widening between us, and though it goes against conventional wisdom, i find it hard to pick up the phone when i feel distant. i don't know why. i guess i fear that conversation would be awkward, and that i won't know what's going on in their lives. i am absurd. why does my brain work like this??

tomorrow i have promised emily that we'll go shopping, but i also have to crack the books, since i've slacked off these past two blah days. i've got both propulsion and aircraft design homework due on tuesday. fortunately, i think those may be the only two assignments due this week, which is nice. i'll get a break. though the ironic thing is, i've gotten so used to having constant homework that i don't quite know what to do with myself when i go a day without it. however, i don't think it will take much work to get over that. ;)

i think i'm going to get ready for bed and read for a while.

karen sent me a very informative email about tuberculosis last night after reading that tunji has it...however, there is an update to that news. he might have tb, but they aren't sure yet, and he's actually had two tb tests that have come up negative already. the story is that tunji had been feeling bad all tuesday and wednesday, and finally went to the health center on thursday, where they discovered he has fluid in his lungs and sent him to the medical center. apparently, fluid in the lungs is often caused by tb, and so that's what they sort of predicted that he had. when nick and i went to visit him yesterday, we had to wear respirator masks and everything.

but they are not certain that he has tb yet, in fact they are thinking maybe he doesn't after all. in that case, they will have to figure out another reason for why he has fluid in his lungs. the good news in that case would be that tunji will be able to stay on as nick's roommate. yesterday there was talk of him moving out.

anyway, so that is tunji's saga. we'll go see him again today, but they said he might get out of the hospital today, which would be great.

last night we went to jammix. i felt like i was dancing much worse than i did last time, but nick and susan both say i was dancing better, and that now i'm just more aware of when i make a mistake, because i've been taking the social dance class for three weeks now. it is very frustrating sometimes to not get everything right, especially when i am dancing with nick, because he is really good and i know he doesn't like dancing with people who aren't as good as him. i somehow need to get a lot of practice before we go to viennese ball in two weeks.

when we got back from jammix we headed to denny's for a late night snack, then headed home. every time i go to denny's late at night, i am always wide awake when we get there, but then as soon as i get some food in me, i totally crash. so when i got home, i fell into bed and didn't set an alarm...and ended up not getting up until about 20 minutes ago. whew, i am lazy today. at the moment i am trying to convince myself to go for a run, but i'm still groggy, and it is gray outside. we'll see.

another valentine's day passed uneventfully yesterday. i guess it would be different if i had ever actually had a valentine on february 14th itself, but that's never happened. v-day is funny. i don't really understand it. why do people get all worked up about it? i mean worked up in either sense. why do those with dates get all schmoopy, and why do those without dates want to act bitter? i would much rather be happy in loving people every day of the year.

wow, that sounded really idealistic. that's not how it was supposed to sound. i guess i'm just a person who is rather indifferent to valentine's day. someone wished me a happy v-day at dinner, and i hadn't even remembered that it was v-day. ah well.

in either case, now v-day is over, and it's friday, thank god! i made it through this hell week surprisingly well. i did extremely poorly on my propulsion midterm (we haven't gotten it back yet, but i know i did horribly because he briefly discussed it in class on thursday)...but i did well on my e206 midterm, phatman worked wonderfully during our presentation, our aircraft design is suitably underway for tuesday, and i did well on the aerodynamics midterm i had this morning. so one bad midterm, but everything else went well. i've been running 4 out of 5 days this week, which is awesome as well. and tonight is another jammix, so i will get to dance my stress away. and it is a three day weekend!

the week's only truly bad news is that nick's roommate, tunji, who had been feeling ill, finally went to the medical center and today we found out that he has tuberculosis. :( i really don't know anything about tb except for that i have had to get skin tests for it before, so i will have to do some research. he will be moving out of nick's room and living somewhere else. i guess the disease is contagious, but not rabidly so? nick said he probably doesn't have it, but will have to get tested just to make sure. anyway, we are heading over to the medical center to visit tunji, so i will find out more.

well i tried to update last night, but apparently the diaryland server was having issues. anyway. the good news was that i survived my long day of wednesday class. yeah, my wednesdays aren't any fun. i'm in class from 9-12, and again from 1:15-5:30. at least i have time for lunch.

but the other good news is that phatman worked beautifully during our demonstration in the lab! go phatman, go! and as promised, here are some pictures of the lovely little thing. remember--the more tape and wire involved, the better!

ah, here he is! isn't he gorgeous? i think the yogurt cups are an especially nice touch.

aaron works diligently to hook up all our wires to power sources and oscilloscopes. though we all played equal parts in construction, aaron is the circuit guru. if he died, mike and steve and i would have no idea where to stick the wires. hmm...

steve, mike and aaron hold the one, the only...phatman!

random picture of bree by the elevators after the feasibility demos.

happy birthday dad!

well, this morning started out horribly--i did poorly on the propulsion midterm--but it has shaped up beautifully tonight. it's funny...the fact that i made some seriously stupid mistakes on the midterm doesn't bother me too much. i don't know whether grades just mean less to me now, or whether i've just decided to channel my anxiety into something else, or what. last quarter i bombed all my midterms and threatened myself with thoughts of just leaving grad school altogether, because i obviously wasn't any good at it. then finals went decently, and all my final grades were actually above average. bombed midterms, came out ok in the end. so i figure maybe i'll just be repeating that pattern this quarter.

anyway. after the test i headed down to the lab with aaron and mike and steve to rebuild our control system plant and reposition the finicky actuator. we spent a good 5 hours working to prepare everything for our feasibility demonstration tomorrow and...it all works! woohoo! we're gonna rock the class with our phatman balancing dude. phatman, phatman, phatman! (sing the old batman theme song in your head.) i know you must all be wondering what this so-called phatman thing looks like, so tomorrow i will borrow nick's camera to take pictures of it, and i promise to post one here. :)

i had piano tonight and am still struggling to get both hands to work together. this weekend is three days, so i will have lots of time to practice before next week's lesson. i came home after piano to a bit of great news...the last week of june/first week of july, i have been picked to go to mexico! see, every summer my family's church back in charlotte runs mission trips to mexico, and on a whim this year, i decided to apply. my sister and brother have both gone in years past (katie has gone three (?) times now), and seeing how much they have enjoyed the experience really made me want to try it. i have never been an especially religious person, and so i feel a bit strange going on a church mission trip...but i am excited nonetheless. the destination is the city of reynosa, just over the border next mcallen, texas (the very southern tip of texas).

i need to take a free elective this spring quarter, and i was thinking about taking a language...continuing my russian, or taking some italian, or relearning some french...now i think i might take spanish!

the weird thing is...today has been great! oh, my week is still hellish, to be sure, but i am feeling like it may be manageable. this is an excellent thing. this morning i learned how to do the viennese waltz, and took the e206 "quiz" which turned out to really be more like a midterm. fortunately, i think i pulled through ok.

after class i spent an hour with my e206 group and dr. rock to figure out options to make our system more workable by the presentations on wednesday. our biggest problem is the actuator--it moves, but only when it is flat and level. the second it is tilted away from level, it stops working because it can't generate enough force to pick itself up. however, we didn't have time to implement our solution ideas today because...

...it is hard-core propulsion study day! yay, everyone cheer! (ok, maybe not.) anyway, our propulsion midterm tomorrow, and everyone is worried. i, oddly, am not worried. when i took propulsion with dr. zinn back at tech, i really enjoyed the class, and as a result, it is one of the few undergrad classes from which i actually remember a fair amount of the information. so i'm feeling pretty comfortable. there will be one ramjet question and one turbojet question. of course, there is always the possibility that dr. cantwell will throw something completely random on there, but hopefully i can reason my way through it. so i have a little more studying to do, but i am not freaking out like everyone else. so that's a good thing.

tomorrow after the midterm, i will spend the rest of the day working on e206. then wednesday after those presentations, i'll spend the rest of the day working on aa241x designing our airplane. then thursday after that assignment is turned in, i'll spend the rest of the day studying for our aerodynamics midterm on friday. then friday, i'll jump for joy because it will be a three-day weekend!

and with that, i am going to end this boring, filled-with-crap-about-classes entry.

oh!! i almost forgot. this past weekend marked the middle of winter quarter, and thus the middle of my degree program. i'm halfway to a master's degree! and so today i did one more thing...i applied to graduate in june! yee-ha! the process was sooo much simpler than it was at tech. all i had to do was go online and click the box that said "i'm graduating in june, get my diploma ready." woo hoo!

long day, but nice, i guess. the weather was absolutely gorgeous. i slept late, talked to becca for a while, did laundry, talked to mom, ate dinner, did dishes, studied, and watched "alias" with emily. now i'm off for a run, and shower, and bed by midnight, with any luck. this week is going to be absolute and utter hell, so i might as well at least start it with a good night's sleep.

i want to do something really nice for a certain person, but i don't know what i should do. something really nice, but tactful. that's the key. ugh.

happy birthday mom and courtney!

i ran another 5k today, this time in campbell, which is about 25 minutes away, sort of a little town in the middle of san jose. (there are so many little towns around here.) i finished in 33:04, which is 10:40 per mile. 16 seconds faster per mile than my first 5k two weeks ago, and i weigh 5 pounds less. and the course today was mostly flat with some uphill; the one two weeks ago was more downhill. so the course was harder, yet i ran faster. needless to say, i was pumped. i feel like i'm really starting to get into decent shape. of course i still have a long way to go before i have lost the pounds i want to lose and am running at the speed i'd like to be able to, but i am feeling really good about myself. my goal is to run a 5k in 30:00 flat by the time i graduate in june. i don't really know if this is realistic or not, but i think it probably is. i think i can do it.

after the race, i came home and watched the georgia tech-duke game on tv. we got creamed of course, but that is to be expected when playing duke. i saw katie standing under the basket on tv! that was neat. after the game i headed over to aaron's, where he and mike and steve and i spent all afternoon working on our e206 project, codename "phatman" for pseudo-heli actuated t-man." yes, we just wanted the cool acronym so we made up vaguely related words that fit. anyway, we made a lot of progress, and when i left just now, aaron and steve were on their way to the lab to test it out.

i, on the other hand, am about to head to the one-act play that emily is acting in! tonight is the last performance. supposedly, the play is "abstract." hmm. well, it will be interesting, and it is nice to support emily. they come to my flute performances, we go to nick's dance performances, so now we go to emily's play. :)

(12:01 a.m.)

i got to talk to carter tonight. it was nice because i hadn't talked to him in a long time...in fact, i didn't realize how long it had been until it turned out to be him on the phone and i tried to remember our last conversation. unfortunately, he has had a rough week. i think i may try to hit atlanta for a weekend during spring break...i don't know. i don't know if it will be possible (translation, affordable). we'll see. i keep hoping more people will make it out here to california, especially now that the weather is turning warmer and there is so much to do outside. i found out just a few days ago that alex and iffy are going to come out in april! that will be fun.

today was a beautiful day. the weather turned a bit chillier, but it was still gorgeously sunny, which was wonderful after yesterday's gloom. i went to class, had lunch at the slop truck with my e206 group, then we headed to aaron's to work on our project for a while. i then mailed my dad's birthday present (so that it will get there on tuesday, which is his birthday), and made cookies for dessert at breakers tonight. i talked to both mom and dad on the phone; mom got the flowers i sent her for her birthday (which is tomorrow) and loved them, which made me happy.

then nick and i headed into san francisco for the ballet! i bought him a ticket as his christmas present. it was really fun, and nick absolutely loved it, which made me feel great. i love getting people presents that i know they will really like. our seats were in the last row of the orchestra section so we had a great view, and the shows (we saw three separate ballet pieces) were all great. the first was a light-hearted piece in which dancers portrayed all the different instruments in an orchestra. the second was set to a half dozen chopin piano pieces. and the third was three movements that evoked the feel of being in a large city. all very cool.

afterwards, we came back down to stanford and went to denny's and made plans to spend this summer doing odd jobs in a big city like san francisco, or new york. i actually think that would be an awesome thing to do, so maybe if nick has nothing to do and i push my start date in houston until late august, we could actually do it. maybe it's a pipe dream...but maybe not.

i am depressed today. this week is just wearing on me. plus it's winter, plus today it was drizzling and generally gray. all of which combine to just make me sad. i need a good way to just relax and let some of this stress drip away. i want to run, but i think if i go in the rain, i will just be even more miserable. i haven't even been hungry today. ugh. i would say i'm looking forward to the weekend, except i'm going to have to spend it studying because i have a midterm, homework assignment, or presentation every single day next week. so i guess i am looking forward to the weekend after this. well, at least the end (even if a temporary one) is in sight.

if anyone has any good suggestions for how to take a half hour relaxation break or something, please, by all means, tell me.

apparently there are a couple people at georgia tech who recently found out via jen that i am moving to houston to work, and were surprised. i guess they had me pegged as a straight-to-ph.d. person. not so weird. i had myself pegged as that person. funny how things change. now i just don't know what i want, but i know i want a break from what i'm doing now. the advantage of a non-thesis master's is that i finish in a year...and i didn't think there was a disadvantage. however, i have found one.

the disadvantage is that a non-thesis master's program is really no different from undergrad. i still go to five classes, i still have homework, i still have midterms and finals. basically, i still feel like an undergrad. five years of undergrad was ok...six years is just too much. honestly. heh.

ugh. i hate living next to all this construction. see, my apartment building (and quite a few others) are conveniently located next to the lot where stanford is constructing two new buildings of studio apartments. that's nice and all, except for the fact that construction has been ongoing ever since i got here in september. and probably will continue until i graduate. the one year i am here is the one year they are building these new studios right next door. they work every day of the week, and saturdays too. most of the time it doesn't bother me because i have to be up in the morning anyway. but today i was planning on happily skipping social dance and aerodynamics and sleeping in until 10:00, since i was in the a/a library late last night doing homework. then i got woken up at 8:30 anyway by the noise of some awful construction machine.

argh.

(12:15 a.m.)

i am ready for this week to just be OVER!! i didn't get to go running tonight, which makes me quite frustrated, especially because i didn't go running last night either. i went sunday and monday, but i must definitely go tomorrow night. i have found recently that there is no better cure for my odd mood swings than to go do some strenuous activity. it always makes me feel good. and if i lose a few pounds, that is a nice side benefit, eh?

the cause of my laziness tonight? i was stuck in the a/a library trying to figure out the optimum balance between solar cells, span, chord, and velocity for an autonomous solar-powered airplane flying at 50,000 feet. {sigh} there are so many different ways i could configure it...i wish i had a better idea of what reasonable wing dimensions are. i'm sort of thinking 12 feet is too long...maybe more like 5-6 feet. the nice thing about this class is that we are actually being challenged to make and justify design decisions, unlike professor jenkins' senior design class last year where we were basically force fed the numbers and equations. the "bad" thing about not doing it jenkins's way is that i actually have to think. ;)

perhaps the standard eight hours of sleep is not enough for me. perhaps i need 10 each night. hmm. last night i actually managed to go to bed by 1:00, which was supposedly good because i didn't have to get up until 9. however, i am still quite sleepy this morning.

but no matter, i still have to head off to the lovely durand building, where i will spend the day slaving over homework and praying for this week to end. and it is only tuesday! what a bad sign.

(4:57 p.m.)

{sigh} it is sooo nice outside. blue skies, cool breeze, bright sunshine. the weather has definitely taken a turn for the warmer this week, and i love it. california is certainly not going to let me leave in june without having given me as many moments as possible to wish there was some way to have the best of both worlds...a nice job in houston, with the setting of stanford.

ok, ok. i know, enough about how nice california is, and how yucky houston is. i really am looking forward to the move. but i will also enjoy these months as a west coaster. woo! i should learn to surf or something. i was informed the other day that over by half moon bay (which is not far), there are some of the most dangerous waves in the world for surfing. that sounds exciting...to watch, anyway. ;)

so when i read online a while ago that stephen king is supposedly retiring, i was quite upset. not because i would be missing out on any more great horror stories (i don't really like horror anyway), but because he would be leaving the dark tower series unfinished!! and i simply must know what happens to roland and his gunslinging gang. but good old kent, he has done his homework, and informs me that only death could keep the man from finishing, and that the next book will hopefully be released in 2003, with a final book coming after that. whew.

becca has started training academy, which means no more daily emails until she's done. poop. she and karen are currently trying to pump me up enough to ask out the boy i have a crush on. speaking of the boy, i had lunch with him and two other guys today. it was beautiful.

i have this problem where i don't look at each week in my planner until i am actually upon that week...which means that i never realize how much i have to do until too late. the next week and a half is going to be quite hellish. e206 homework due wednesday, aircraft design and propulsion homework due thursday, aerodynamics homework due friday, e206 and aero midterms on monday, propulsion midterm on tuesday, e206 project presentation on wednesday. holy moly. time to buckle down and prepare to not enjoy the light of day for a while.

these weekend illnesses come and go. today, after sleeping for 15 hours on friday night and another 12 hours last night, i feel much better. emily and i even went to the mall, where i was sorely disappointed in the cd store. i have finally decided to buy a few cds, specifically the ones that i have downloaded in their entirety and been listening to constantly. i figure i can make the sacrifice for people like angie aparo and john mayer and michelle branch and actually buy their albums instead of just burning copies. but the music store at the mall had only one of the cds i was looking for, so i came home and ordered them all off amazon. i am proof that it really is easier to get everything online.

i watched the super bowl. i don't know why, since i really don't like pro football very much. but it was nice to see the underdog patriots win on a last-second field goal. it made the game exciting, anyway. the commercials weren't much to speak of this year, though i did love the one with barry bonds and hank aaron ("barrrrrry....it's time to retire....you don't really want to break the all-time home run record..." "hank, knock it off!"). i guess the highlight of the entire event for me however was the halftime show with u2. i love u2!

yesterday christina sent me this, which she found on some random website:

it's funny. those few little paragraphs describe much of my life. i knew i had something special with my friends at tech, and i thought i knew what i'd be losing when i left. instead, in leaving, i have discovered things about each of my friends that i never saw before. yes, when i left, i lost a life that i will always remember fondly; it took me a day to love them, but will take me a lifetime to forget my five years in atlanta. but i've gained a lot too. i never would have known that i needed some california in my life if i hadn't summoned the courage to come here. i think everyone needs some california. :)

is there someone conspiring against me? must i be sick every saturday? ugh. i am running a fever, i think, though i'm not sure because i don't have a thermometer. but i'm having hot and cold flashes (currently, i'm burning up), and everything aches, even my eyelids. mom says it's probably the flu. so let's count: in the four weeks since i've been back at school, i've had food poisoning, a week-long head cold, and now the flu.

this is the first time i've been up all day. i woke up at 7:30 a.m....went back to sleep. woke up at 12:30 p.m....took some advil, went back to sleep. woke up at 4:00 p.m....called emily to tell her i won't be making it over to susan's house tonight to watch movies, called my mom to whine about being sick (moms are great for that...i love mom), and now i must force myself to venture to safeway, because i'm almost out of advil, i have no more tylenol p.m., no sudafed, no nothing. also, i have no gatorade, no orange juice, no chicken soup. here i go.

dear god, why me??

of course it is my own fault. i didn't give it a chance to go away the first time. then i had homework, and classes, and life, and i didn't get enough sleep this week. and it's back. the damn head cold is back. and i feel miserable. hopefully tonight's sleep will relegate the virus (a cold is a virus, right?) to where it belongs...out of my body! i plan on sleeping until i think i can't possibly sleep anymore...and then i'll sleep even more.

heh. that reminds me of watching "as good as it gets" at carter's house over christmas break with the director's commentary turned on. there is a pause at one point in the movie that is actually written in the script as "a pause twice as long as the longest pause you can imagine." and it really is that long. just when you think it's almost over, it keeps going.

tomorrow is 02.02.02. i feel like i should throw a party or something. i guess i'll save it for super bowl sunday. the 2nd year aero/astros are throwing a party, where according to the schedule they will start drinking at 9 a.m. and continue through game time at 3 p.m. and then onward into the night.

the 2nd years are interesting. i think there is a very real possibility that a few of them are raging alcoholics...but in any case, they're a very tight group. their class really bonded. though my first year class gets along very well, we don't have the connection that the second years do. last night a couple guys who finished up last year were back visiting and everyone was having a grand old time at the nuthouse. i actually know one of the guys from my co-op days (he was finishing his co-op tours as i was beginning, back in 1997), so it was nice to see him again.

nick went home to oklahoma this weekend to help his mom pack up the house he has lived in all his life. she is selling it. nick is sad about it...which i can understand. selfishly, though, i wish he was here. the boy exasperates me, and yet when he's gone all i want is for him to come back. i wonder if he realizes how much he has eased the pain of leaving atlanta. hmm. that doesn't really sound like much of a compliment, but it is meant to be very high praise.

on a somewhat related note...i don't know i am supposed to find a boy to have a relationship with when my boy friends raise the bar so high. it seems like it would be so much easier to just date nick, kent, ron, daniel, chris, jelly.... yes, half of those boys are in relationships, i know, and i'm not saying i want to date them. i'm just trying to make the point that it seems like it would be so much easier to go from a friendship to a relationship, you know, from something into something more, rather than from nothing into something.

anyway. just musing. it's funny how things really do adhere to the old saying about rose-colored glasses, and looking better on the other side of the fence. i talked to christina briefly online tonight and she'd been hanging out with carter and kent, and i felt a pang of just wanting to be there, so badly. it wasn't until about ten minutes later that i remembered hanging out with the group on new year's eve and wanting instead to be talking to nick because i felt out of place. weird. maybe i can be content in both places. maybe? wow.

i saw the object of my crush today. ohh he is cute. ;) becca and karen were all excited to hear that i have a new crush. they say to ask him out. i have never in my life asked a boy out. i don't think i know how!

whew. i think i just had a gigantic mood swing all in the span of writing this journal entry. my room is such a mess. i think i am going to clean just a bit, and then work on making this cold disappear.