November 2002 Archives

i can't believe tomorrow is december. wow.

so last night cari, debbie, becca and i had a girl's night at the movies, and we chose to see....die another day. yes, four girls out without the boys, free to see whatever cheesy romantic comedy we've been secretly wanting to see...and we chose james bond. funny.

before we left, everybody came over to my place and we had leftover turkey and sweet potatoes (well, except for becca who doesn't eat turkey). yum. i still have more, so i am eating them for lunch today as well. i really should make sweet potatoes more often since i like them so much...but they seem like such a thanksgiving food!

anyway. it's time for the georgia tech vs. uga game, so i'm off to watch. i don't know what our chances are, georgia's pretty darn good this year, but...go tech!!

(6:19 p.m.)

sigh.

tech is getting massacred.

a good friend took a job and i didn't know, because we never talk anymore. i don't know why we never talk anymore. i am not confident enough in my friendships.

president bush has suggested that i (and my fellow civil servants) not get my full raise next year because "full statutory civilian pay increases in 2003 would interfere with our nation's ability to pursue the war on terrorism."

bullshit, bushie!

i just watched the space shuttle and space station glide silently overhead, joined together by a small docking ring to form a bright unwavering star in the sky. there were 10 people in that bright star that i could see swimming through the sky from my balcony. and i thought, "i help make that happen. i do my small part to make that happen."

that's why i came to nasa, that's why i sacrificed a higher salary and a cushier work environment and instead toil as a civil servant in my plain beige building with my uncomfortable old-as-dirt chair and my crappy government-issued computer. despite that, i do good work. we do good work. to have the president say that we're not worthy of our normal pay raise because he needs the money to feed an already obese military is a slap in the face.

(7:11 p.m.)

i just called my friend to catch up, and ask him about the job he's taken. it took me an hour and a half to work up the courage to dial his number for a six minute conversation. he was busy. he said he'd call back in a week or so.

even when we know our feelings are absurd, it is so hard to overcome them. i was honestly frightened to pick up the phone to call someone i used to be so incredibly close to, someone who was a best friend before distance got in the way. confidence in friendships? yeah, i have none. stupid, stupid sarah.

i feel like i made the mistake of coming to work on a sunday or something. there is no one here. the parking lot was as empty as i've ever seen it, despite the fact that there's a flight up right now (meaning there are mission controllers who must be here round-the-clock). i think becca and i should have chair races down the hall. either that, or go with becca's idea to rearrange the furniture in our mentor rich's office.

two funny bits from sfgate's morning fix:

Because Aliens Love Your Dumb Business Card
The Moon is open for business. A California company plans to fly the world's first private mission to the moon next year, delivering messages, business cards, cremated remains, and whatever other moronic crap they can think of, for a fee. TransOrbital Inc. signed a $20 million contract to use decommissioned Soviet-built ballistic missiles for commercial space launches. The unmanned space vehicle, called the TrailBlazer, would orbit the moon for about three months, taking photos, before crashing onto its surface. Private messages, cremated remains and other crap will be carried in a capsule designed to survive the crash. The company charges $2,500 for a business card. Messages start at $16.95. Inert materials are $2,500 per gram. TransOrbital said the company hopes to fly regular missions to the moon. "Wait wait wait, let me get this straight," said the Gods of Goddamn Human Decency and Common F--king Sense, "You're going to crash a bunch of crappy Russian missiles into the Moon's surface and discharge a bunch of inane business cards and jewelry and powdered dead people and useless solipsistic garbage? Is this a joke? What the hell is wrong with you people? What, you think you own the moon now? Are you all just simpering money-drunk capitalistic jackasses? Is that it?" the gods all said, just a little bitterly. "What's next, dumping 20 million gallons of crude oil in the ocean near Spain?" it added. "Oh wait."

Giant, Elegant, Beautiful, And Dead
Sure, the towering 76-foot Christmas tree installed in New York's Rockefeller Center looks huge, but it's a dwarf next to Miami's 110-foot giant in Bayfront Park. The company decorating Miami's waterfront park -- a balmy patch dotted with un-Christmas-like palm trees -- got its Norway Spruce through a Christmas tree merchant from a private residence in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., a suburb north of NYC. Delivery included a certificate stating the tree is the "tallest Christmas tree in America," gosh isn't that nice, cities now competing to see who can chop the biggest oldest most beautiful tree and prop it up in their tourist meccas and string it with a billion lights for about a month before it becomes firewood. Is there not some sort of mute sadness attached to this ridiculous practice? Can we not just sigh sadly at the loss of a 110-foot spruce just so sticky Miami can claim the biggest xmas tree?

i get these morning humor emails from sfgate, and i love them because the guy that writes them is so incredibly sarcastic. you know how some people think jackass-style humor is the funniest thing around? that kind of stuff never really makes me laugh. i don't find crude or bodily function-related other generally low-brow humor all that funny...but show me something said or written that just drips with sarcasm, and you'll get me every time.

anyway. i can already tell it's going to be hard to get anything done here today. becca and i are taking advantage of the absense of boys (and their associated picky eating habits) to have lunch at mediterraneano's. mmm.

oh! and thanksgiving dinner yesterday went very well. we had so much turkey that everyone got to take home plenty of leftovers (turkey sandwiches for me this weekend!), my sweet potatoes turned out mmm mmm good (and since not everyone likes sweet potatoes, i have lots of leftovers, yummy), and everything else was great as well. it was nice to have people to have thanksgiving with.

i called home yesterday and was chastised by my grandmother for saying that i'm going to root for stanford tonight when they take on unc in the preseason nit final. the fact that i am an alumni of stanford seemed have no effect on her perception that i was rooting for "some california school instead of [my] home state." she is funny.

it's cold outside and warm inside and soon, i'll have sweet potatoes filling my apartment with their delicious smell. it feels like the holidays, like i could wrap myself up in thanksgiving and christmas. last night i pulled out the holiday music for the first time and it just felt...soooo cozy. yum. in the meantime, here's my list. some things i'm thankful for...

• my family and my friends, who, through their love and support, make me remember every day how lucky i really am
• the physical ability to run, and complete a 5k on thanksgiving day (i ran the turkey trot this morning with optimistic hopes of 31:00, realistic hopes of 32:00, and actual results of 32:18. i can do better.)
• thoughtful friends like debbie, who, when i went to borrow a mixer from her this morning, greeted me with "here's the mixer, and here's a present for you." the present was an ice bag. to ice my shin splints. so thoughtful!
• amusing friends like becca, who lost her car key at the turkey trot, prompting an exasperated call to ron to see if a) he could pick us up at the galleria and b) he could find a locksmith who actually works on thanksgiving
• watchful guidance from above, that helped becca miraculously find the key lying on the ground, thus avoiding much hassle
• the fact that i'm not a hula dancer on the hula float at the macy's day parade--it looks cold.
• friends to share thanksgiving dinner with this afternoon
• thoughtful conversation, and calm debate, whether via phone, internet, or face-to-face
• visitors
• my balcony overlooking the bayou
• a steady job doing something i am good at with the potential to affect the space program and hence the world in a big way

of course there are many more things i'm thankful for. but that's my 5 minute list.

(3:00 p.m.)

my sweet potatoes are almost done (the marshmellows are browning). while cooking, i watched "billy elliot" for the first time in a while. i cried like a baby. such a good movie.

brrr! according to the weatherman, a "cold front" carrying "arctic air" has arrived. (question. isn't it impossible for a cold front to not carry arctic air if you live in the northern hemisphere? isn't saying "an arctic cold front" sort of like saying "tcby yogurt"? meaning it's repetitive? hmm. i just realized that the word "repetitive" is itself rather repetitive in the way it sounds...)

anyway, give me a break, it's pretty empty in the office today and i'm already thinking of the day off tomorrow. original point being that it is cold! and rainy. and hence generally disgusting outside. the good news is that last night i was able to legitimately wear my winter coat and the wool hat i got in scotland. i can't believe sunday is december freaking 1st. wow.

last night i was watching mtv (yes, i admit it, i occasionally watch the crap on mtv, and i enjoy it) and they were showing cribs, this show where they go around to various celebrity homes and the celebrity shows you all the cool things in their house, etc. i like this show mainly because i love looking at houses in general. i like to see layout, and location, and how they've been decorated...and you have to admit, celebrities do tend to have some really neat things in their homes.

so last night the first house they showed was the coolest house ever. it was in barcelona and belonged to some spanish pop star, paula rubio? something like that. anyway, she lived in this building that used to be some sort of factory, and it was on a hillside overlooking the entire city of barcelona. it had these neat arches everywhere, arched windows, incredibly high ceilings (ah, i loooove high ceilings), and the coolest layout of any house i've ever seen. i wanted to take out a few million dollar loan and buy it from her NOW. it was sooo cool.

if this rocket science thing doesn't work out, i totally want to go back to school and study either architecture or industrial design. either that, or win the lottery and move to the coolest house ever in barcelona.

(9:37 p.m.)

a week ago i said i needed a break from diaryland, and that my entries would be getting shorter.

i am such a liar. unintentional, yes. but true? no. i think i have an addiction.

hola. not much to speak of today. i was at work late last night because now that i've bought my plane ticket home, and been forced to get one that leaves at 7:15 a.m. on a day i was supposed to be working, i now have to earn 5 extra hours over the next three weeks. this doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's always harder than i think it will be. one, because i usually earn an extra hour during the first part of the week anyway, but i always use it on friday, when we take a long lunch and i want to go home early. and two, because i hate staying late, especially during the fall and winter, when working late means not leaving until the sun is well below the horizon. and that's depressing.

ah well.

we were supposed to have softball tonight, but apparently we were the only team that could actually field enough players to avoid a forfeit. so the guy in charge cancelled all the games and rescheduled for later in december. i was looking forward to playing. instead, chris said he'd feed me jambalaya that he needs to get rid of before he leaves for thanksgiving.

i've volunteered to make sweet potatoes for our group thanksgiving dinner on thursday. since it's already tuesday, i suppose that means i should go to the grocery store and...buy some sweet potatoes.

i know potato doesn't have an "e" but what about potatoes? potatos? i can't decide which is right. (pause to look it up.) ah. i did it right the first time. potatoes.

told you there wasn't much to speak of today.

the clouds looked strange this morning. they looked angry. there is a front coming through and it's supposed to rain for the next few days, but i have never seen such oddly angry clouds.

i talked to nick not once, but twice this weekend. it was nice. i miss him. i cannot wait to go visit; yesterday at barnes and noble i bought a guide to the provence region of france, and i'm going to look through it to find lots of cool places to visit. i'm pretty sure we've already decided to visit marseille and a little town that is sort of like venice...but i also want to find some neat things to do during the day while he is in class.

i've decided that i need to get this scholarship that he has. the rotary people over there are always planning cool activities; this weekend he got to go pick olives! how completely french. {sigh} ah, it sounds like a wonderful life. i am so excited to visit.

the other thing he told me is that i am the coolest girl ever because i can say "yeah, so jason and i went to the batting cages..." without batting an eyelash. ha. i mentioned this to carter, who agreed that i get a lot of bonus points for being sports-literate. funny that i get bonus points for something i would do anyway. :) too bad that i still wasn't batting very well though...

overall it was a really good weekend though. and last night i ran 3 miles in 29:55. YEAH!! under 10:00 pace!!

(10:52 a.m.)

someone got shot last night in the ghetto apartment complex next door to my nice apartment complex, and this morning i found the news briefing online that fleshed out the details:

Man shot in apartment robbery remains critical

A Webster man was shot at home Sunday in what police said was a narcotics-related robbery.

The 23-year-old victim was shot once in the jaw about 5:30 p.m. in a back room of his apartment in the 1100 block of Camino Village. He was taken by Life Flight helicopter to Memorial Hermann Hospital in critical condition, Webster police said.

The suspects, identified only as four men and a woman, were invited into the apartment by the victim. They were still at large later Sunday, Webster police said.

now, i knew the complex next door was sketchy, but this makes me a bit uneasy.

yesterday's attempt at being clever on our group website:

"there are days and weekends when sitting at home becomes a self-reinforcing thing for me. i didn't do anything last night, and i haven't done anything today, and though i have plans tonight, i am fighting the urge to just not go. (though i am definitely going, because it will be fun, we are going to see cabaret at the galveston opera house!) but the longer i stay home enjoying the solitude of my apartment, reading, napping, lying on my couch...the harder it is to leave the apartment. a sarah at rest wants to stay at rest."

and then today i added:

"sure, a sarah in motion also tends to stay in motion. last night after i managed to get up and leave my apartment, i was out until 4 a.m. at which point i couldn't function anymore, so i came home. this afternoon, jason and i went to the batting cages (i was inspired by my dismal performance at softball last week) and i kept hitting and hitting until the crappy bat started tearing into my hand and i was forced to quit.

though i think that stopping a sarah in motion is probably easier than starting a sarah at rest."

my reactions make no sense.

i've had it for less than 24 hours, and i'm already in love with the new matchbox twenty album. happy sigh.

(10:46 a.m.)

senator bob smith (from new hampshire, i'll let you guess which party): "I believe whoever controls space will control peace here on earth." also, "If we are to preserve our current space advantage, then we must protect our space systems from any attack and deny our adversaries that same use of space." also, "Control of space is more than a new mission to consider funding, it is our moral legacy. Moving into space is our next manifest destiny."

OH. MY. GOD. yes, he actually used the term "manifest destiny." here i was starting to be excited because a senator actually managed to discuss the space program, only to find that he just wants to use it as a strategic position. for the love of god, why why why is the u.s. still focused on conquering space, instead of exploring it??

(2:56 p.m.)

today makes it official: i have now been in houston for longer than ever before. my first co-op tour in '97 lasted 4 months, from mid-august to mid-december. since today is november 22 and i started work full-time on july 22, i've now been here longer than at any other single time.

yes, i keep track of things like this.

becca got laughed at by a third grader this morning for saying her favorite ninento game was "legend of zelda," and now i have a fear of being proven nintendo-ignorant by diego (the boy i am tutoring) when i see him next time.

anyway.

if a person never wakes up excited to go to work, is that truly a sign that their job isn't right for them? if a person has "the job they've always dreamed of" and yet they still feel as if something is missing, what is the appropriate course of action? is it possible that a person could do their best work when they have too much to do, and do crappy work when they don't have enough to do? what does it mean if a person is happy with the unexpected things in their life but not totally happy with the thing they did expect?

i'm in a foul mood this morning. why? too many reasons.

on monday i tried to buy a plane ticket home. the combination of website interacting with bank didn't work as it should have, and aforementioned website ended up putting 5 temporary authorizations on my account (effectively overdrafting my account and leaving me with $0.00 available balance for 24 hours while they fixed their mistake). while i was waiting for the bank to correct things, the price of the plane tickets rose. and i think it's absolutely freaking absurd that i can't fly from houston to charlotte at a reasonable time of day for less than $300. GRRR!

i want to leave houston and fly to charlotte on december 20, but i need to work at least half a day that day, so i can't leave earlier than, say, 1:00 (it would really depend on which houston airport the ticket is out of). and i want to fly back to houston on december 29, anytime. if anyone is bored and needs something to do, and can find me a plane ticket that fits those requirements for under $300, please let me know and i'll love you forever. sheesh. i can fly to fricking atlanta those days for $208, but another 200 miles is another $100 at least. i can fly to sao paolo, brazil this weekend for $308, but i can't fly to charlotte. i hate the airline industry.

so that's one reason for my foul mood. two, we had a softball double header last night, and we won one and lost one, and i played like crap. i was embarassed for myself about the way i played. i sucked. royally. i couldn't catch. i couldn't hit. the only thing i could do successfully was keep score. i sucked.

three, i'm tired.

four, somehow i ran my 3 miles really slowly this morning, even though i was feeling good and my shins were hurting less than they have been. i want to get faster, and it's just not happening. i think i must be doing something wrong.

the only thing i have going for me is that i did well on the impromptu geography quizzes my group did after reading in a cnn article that 87% of 18-24 year old americans can't point out iraq on a map, and 70% can't even point out new jersey. on our quiz, i correctly identified 1) all 50 states, 2) all of western europe and about half of eastern europe, 3) more than half of a map that covered from syria to papua new guinea and southern russia to northern australia 4) about half of south and central america. actually, we all did pretty well...though we will be teasing becca for a while about not knowing her midwestern states. ;)

1) i coulda been a contender. i heard from aaron today. he, mike, steve, and bree all passed their quals at stanford. in my other life, i would have been there trying to make the group five-for-five. i feel a little weird about that. a little pang of regret. just a little pang, but it's there.

2) the sky is falling. i got up at 3:30 a.m. this morning and met up with a bunch of people to go watch the leonids. we drove about 5 miles west to get away from the bigger, brighter lights of clear lake and stopped by the side of a road. there were clouds on the horizon and the moon was too darn bright, but we still saw enough bright meteors to make the early morning wake-up time worthwhile. around 5:15 a.m. when the shower was really slowing down, 8 of us headed to breakfast at waffle house. buzz had never been to a waffle before...what a poor, neglected child! she loved it. ;)

3) and 12 times 9 is... i went to stewart elementary over in kemah today to start tutoring. i'll be working with diego, a 9-year-old 4th grader, for the rest of the school year, every tuesday morning. today we worked on a multiplication word problem worksheet his teacher had given him, and he did an excellent job. he did, however, make the mistake of telling me that what he really has trouble with are his twelves, so when he finished his worksheet and we still had 15 minutes left, i helped him solve 12x5, 12x8, 12x3, etc. he was getting the hang of it at the end, i think.

tutoring was fun; i'm looking forward to continuing the rest of the year. every time i interact with kids, i remember why my mom loves teaching so much, even with all the crap she has to put up with. there's something immensely rewarding about teaching a kid.

4) the shuttle as a black hole. becca saw this cartoon in the economist this morning. sad, but true. for the accompanying article, click here. it is a very turbulent time at nasa right now, as the agency tries to figure out what their (our) direction should be. as an employee, it raises my hopes...but also makes me nervous. and frustrated. i could say a lot more, but i won't.

5) the little digital shutterbug... i almost forgot. i posted new pictures the other day. six flags, halloween, and camping.

for the curious ones, here is a picture that encapsulates what we do here in my group. that's right, we run simulations and calculations in an attempt to prevent, or at least predict, this happening to your car (or your house, or your friend's house, or your head):

yep. predicting when and where the sky is going to fall. that's what we do.

of course, with becca around, i know that i'm safe. if it's gonna hit anyone in our group, it'll be becca. she's the unluckiest person alive. :)

i love playing soccer, even when we lose. running hard, feeling my lungs burn as i try to beat my opponent to the ball. it makes me feel powerful; it makes me feel strong.

i love afternoons with my friends, shopping for winter clothes, singing in the middle of the store, both followed by ice cream or smoothies.

most of all, i love lazy saturday nights. the ones where i tell everyone else that i need a night to myself. the ones where i come home and drink my wine and listen to my music and close my eyes...and i can just be me.

"I don't know if we'd be better off
Living our own separate lives
Talking every once or twice
Whenever we need each other."
- ari hest, everything seems wrong

last night was nice. dinner and conversation with a good friend. a movie (as i got back into my car at 11:30, two minivans next to me opened their doors and children came tumbling out for the 12:01 showing of harry potter). and a delicious late-night phone call.

i went to bed late with intentions to get up a 6 and go running. i set the alarm but forgot to turn it on. i woke up at 9:00 with sun streaming through the blinds. sigh.

i feel like i need a break from diaryland, as my entries are becoming fairly dull. updates may be sporadic (or shorter, at the very least) for a while. sorry.

last night i fell into a typical sarah post-phone call mood. i think it's probably not worth trying to talk to me when i'm in one of those moods, as carter likely discovered last night.

i called nick and was so happy to talk to him, but then i inevitably had to hang up. i always have to hang up, of course, it's a fact of life and telephone bills. but i don't ever like to hang up the phone with anyone i'm talking to who is far away, whether it be atlanta or france. so i hang up, and i'm so profoundly sad that nick's not here, that i can't wake up tomorrow morning, drive to work, and give him a hug.

sometimes i don't understand why life has to work the way it does, why we meet people who come to mean so much, and then we lose them to time, and more often just to distance. there's always the idea of "the one that got away"...but i think the idea applies to more than an ex or some person you lusted after. if i have one that "got away," i have fifty. it makes me a little bit sad, but moreso, it just makes me wonder. what brings people together? and what makes them go their separate ways despite the relationship that has grown to mean so much?

yeah. it's one of those days.

it was a weird evening overall. after work i headed out to gilruth to join debbie and jason in stuffing backpacks for underprivileged kids at local schools. that was fun, and they fed us--always a good thing. then i walked over to the softball fields to watch just a few minutes of the jetsons game, but ended up freezing my butt off for an hour and a half after chris left to get his car and i had to keep score for the team. it was cold!! yeah, yeah, it was fun though. but then i lost my earring. dammit.

then i came home and called nick, then talked to carter and probably confused him with my mood for a little while, then attempted to watch dawson's creek that i had supposedly taped only i discovered that my vcr sucks. actually, i think my vcr is fine, i just have trouble figuring out how to set everything up now that i have digital cable and the channels all come through a box. you'd think it wouldn't be that complicated, and it's probably not...but i am dumb. finally i climbed into bed and just read for a while.

this entry sucks. i'm going to class.

november 14, part 2. i didn't like looking at this morning's entry when i loaded my page, so i am updating with this to make something new appear. hooray.

so i totally forgot that today and tomorrow i will be in yet another class (not technically training, just a generic "understanding space" class). though i really shouldn't complain, because i do enjoy the way classes shake up my work schedule. nothing is worse than sitting at my desk all day, every day for weeks.

we finally played softball again last night after three straight weeks of being rained out. because of the way the schedule worked out with all the rainouts, we actually ended up playing the same team we played a month ago. unfortunately we lost this time (we won last time) by a score of 9-6. i played right field again and only one ball came my way. probably a good thing, since i'm not so good at judging fly balls. ;) but on offense...nick, our team "manager", had moved me from 10th in the order to 4th! this was very cool. since we play co-ed and have to bat in boy-girl-boy-girl order, being moved from the 5th girl in the lineup to the 2nd girl in the lineup made me feel really good. i hit well too--i went 2-for-4. no rbis, unfortunately. and in my last at-bat, in the last inning of the game, with 2 outs and us down by 3...i hit a line drive to the shortstop to end the game. :( it was such a solid hit, it just went right to him. dang it. oh well.

i dragged myself out of bed for fitness class this morning and ran 3 miles at a slow pace--33 or 34 minutes overall. {sigh} after not running regularly from june through september, it is really taking me a while to get back into it. i'm still not past the point where running stops becoming a chore and becomes something i want to do, but hey, it happened once back in march, so i have faith that it will happen again if i can just keep going.

well. back to class.

ahh, i had the best weekend i've had in a long while. it was so disappointing to wake up this morning and feel the cool breeze coming through my window and know that i had to get up and go to work. ugh. :)

friday: nine of us met at debbie's apartment and headed up to buca di beppo, a family-style italian restaurant, for dinner. we had soooo much food, but it was all really good, and we all left very stuffed. the restaurant was decorated in a funky way, with random pictures all over the walls and even a table with a bust of the pope on it--the "pope's head table." and there was a table in the kitchen too. weird! the funniest part was when debbie and i went to the bathroom, and discovered vintage signs all over the walls proclaiming the benefits of a certain kind of lipstick, and telling a lady where she should keep her hands while on a date (that one was crude but very funny). yum.

after dinner, the group split up, and nacho, jason, debbie, rick and i ended up coming back to clear lake and going to the bowling alley for rock 'n bowl from 11 to 2 a.m. rock 'n bowl is where they turn off the lights, turn on black lights, and play really loud music while you bowl. it was fun, and i learned two things in succession. one, i can bowl better with my left hand than my right, which is very strange because i'm right-handed, and two, for years and years i have been bowling the wrong way. yeah, so when i fixed the way i released the ball i did much better, and my right hand once again became superior to my left. yeah, i felt pretty stupid after that. ;)

saturday: i got up at 9 and headed to the soccer fields for our 10:15 game. though we lost again (sigh), we played well i thought. i got to play stopper this time instead of just defensive wing, and i really enjoyed that and make a couple good stops. there were a few bad calls by the ref that didn't go our way or we might have won. maybe next week...

after soccer i came home and quickly showered before heading to pe-te's for buzz's d.phil. celebration lunch. i thoroughly enjoyed my cajun bbq and beans and rice, and then after hanging out for a while i finally got on the road to garner state park around 3:30. it was about a 300 mile drive (about an hour west of san antonio), and so i finally got to the campground just after 8:00. of course it was already dark, so i just joined gavin, jen, lauren and melissa around the campfire for a few hours before setting up my borrowed tent and falling asleep.

sunday: i woke up around 9:30 when my tent suddenly became an oven as the sun rose above the trees. gavin and jen were already up, and lauren and melissa followed shortly. after breakfast and some relaxation, lauren and melissa left (they had other plans), and gavin, jen, their dogs and i drove about 30 miles to lost maples state park and hiked a 5-mile trail up and down a hill and through a lot of maple trees that were just starting to change colors. in a couple weeks i bet the colors will be fabulous, but they were pretty good as they were. the dogs enjoyed the hike and were completely worn out by the time we got back to the car. we got back to the campground about 5:00 and got a fire started before the sun went down completely. i wandered down to the river for a little while and when i came back, gavin and jen were getting out the hot dogs to roast in the fire. mmm. i'm firmly convinced that there are only two places where hot dogs really are the perfect food--at a baseball game, and while camping. later on, we star-gazed and made s'mores and finally headed to bed.

monday: i woke up again when my tent started to swelter, and soon remarked to gavin that "it's 9:30 in the morning, we're sitting here enjoying the day, and we're getting paid to do it!" he laughed. we definitely took advantage of our paid veteran's day holiday. :) anyway, we packed up our tents and i left the campground around 10:30 and arrived back at my apartment about 10 minutes after 3:00. after a quick shower and unpacking, i met betsy, buzz, katie, and stephanie at betsy's apartment and headed downtown for our girl's night out.

it wasn't meant to be girls only specifically, but it ended up that way. we had dinner at this fabulous cuban restaurant near the theater district, and then walked the three blocks to jones hall to hear maya angelou speak as part of a "unique lives and experiences" series. it was cool. though i have to admit that her topic was merely a typical maya angelou subject--about how all people are "composers" and how you never know whose life you might touch--i could listen to her speak all night. her voice was just so calm and soothing. and i loved the way she'd crack herself up from time to time--telling a story and just start laughing. it was a really enjoyable evening.

tuesday: and now my glorious 3-day weekend is over and i'm back at work. :( softball tonight for the first time in a month, because it's amazingly not raining!

a parting shot before i head out of town for the weekend. i got this email from alex; the "you both" in the first sentence refers to myself and leila. here it is:

    "I had a really weird dream last night in which you both had prominent roles.

I was having a barbeque here at the house when an asteroid crashed into my back yard. Upon closer investigation, i discovered that it was not an asteroid but instead the Mir space station which had somehow been shrunken to 1/100th scale and you and Sarah were the only inhabitants. Naturally, you were both also shrunken. At that time, you related to me the story of how there was a space war between Russia and the US and that you guys were top secret double agents who had infiltrated the ruskie space program. when the russians found out, they got pissed off and shrunk you and then decided to crash the Mir out of spite.

all the attendees at the barbeque were very fascinated by this whole story, except for Iffy and Brian McGinnis, who weren't paying any attention because they were too busy gambling on how long they could stand on their heads.

at this point, the gambling thing inspired me. I realized that I could make a lot of money by hiding you in casinos in las vegas to spy on other peoples cards for me. we really kicked some ass, and then I used my winnings to buy an AMC gremlin with a really bad ass set of aluminum rims and a sound system with an 8 track tape player.

then I woke up.

Weird, eh? I never did learn who won the war..."

so here's my dramatic announcement for today...ready?

i think i do want a ph.d. (and after seeing buzz's presentation on the research she did for her d.phil, which she presented it to our division today, i want to be a rhodes scholar too, hee hee.)

no, but seriously. i will admit that today's enthusiasm is likely due to buzz's presentation and jeremy's intern pitch dry run this afternoon where he talked about his master's and soon-to-be ph.d. research. and also the fact that the research sounded really cool, and i began to picture myself doing some really cool experiment and tinkering around with hardware. and also the fact that i realized that the reason steve and i had such trouble finding information on hybrid rocket injectors back in the spring when we were doing our guided research could be because there simply hasn't been enough research in the area, and that i could do something about that. wow...

and despite carter saying he would never want to do a ph.d. after watching his dad do one, and despite buzz saying the 6 months she spent actually writing her thesis were the worst months of her life... i dunno. a ph.d. is still something i would like to do for myself.

we'll see. that is all i can say at the moment i suppose.

last night was nice. after my run and shower, i went over to becca's and watched friends and will & grace while she cooked dinner for me. ;) her mom sent her a new recipe book and she has been wanting to try things out, but wanted a guinea pig. i was happy to oblige--hey, free dinner is always good. last night she made roasted vegetables and then pasta with an artichoke and tomato sauce. it was good. a little heavy on the olive oil perhaps, but good.

random thought: yesterday i saw a tv commercial for spam. ewwwww.

i have fun weekend plans in order. tonight i'm going out with a bunch of people to buca di beppo's, a family style italian place. yummy. tomorrow is a soccer game and then lunch at pe-te's in celebration of buzz's official crowning as a doctor of philosophy. she's graduating in absentia at 1:00 oxford time, 7:00 a.m. houston time, so by the time we take the field for soccer at 10:15 she'll have been a doctor for 3 whole hours. :) then after lunch i'm heading west of san antonio to join gavin, jen, and gavin's sister and her friend for two nights of camping at garner state park (and the weather is supposed to be gorgeous!). yep that's right folks, saturday and sunday nights camping, because monday is veteran's day and another lovely paid holiday for civil servants like myself. woohoo! and monday night i'm heading downtown to hear maya angelou speak. so it'll be a full, fun weekend.

i probably won't update again until monday. :)

yeah, late update today. i graduated from training academy, came home, went running. whee.

becca did the name game thing that i posted here yesterday. she said she had some issues with hers, but that mind was "right on." i wonder if she realizes that it is just some formula that spits out sentences based on the letters in your name, and therefore cannot be taken at all seriously. i will have to tease her about it. ;)

so i think that with november having arrived and all, summer is officially over in houston. on halloween, debbie and jason and i noticed that it was chilly outside for the first time, really, and it has stayed that way for a week now. it's actually really lovely outside now that it has stopped raining (knock on wood). the sun is bright, the sky is blue, there is a bit of a breeze, and the temperature is ideal--about 70 degrees. the odd thing is that it seems colder than that in my apartment. my hands and feet are always numb; my extremities are always cold it seems. but i don't want to turn the heat on yet. so i just sit on my feet, and keep my hands busy typing or cooking or reading.

i realized today that i've reached some sort of turning point in my running. in the past, when i ran it felt as if my legs could go on forever and ever, and my reason for stopping was always that i was gasping for breath. it was like i couldn't get enough oxygen. these days, the situation has reversed. my cardiovascular system and overall endurance has improved to where i feel like i could run for days at a smooth 11:00/mile pace (slow, i know, but still)...but now my legs hurt. i rarely can run without having pain in my shins. love those shin splints. ugh! usually i can run through them and once i get warmed up the pain subsides to a dull ache, but yesterday they hurt enough that i had to stop running.

grr.

sometimes it hits me. this all still rings of a long co-op tour...complete with annoying head cold. {sigh} i just want to sleep all day. instead, i have more training academy. and speaking of that...

so after 6 weeks of training academy, i have decided on my most favorite nasa phrase, and it is...drumroll please..."that would be a bad day."

now, modifiers such as "very," "really," "extremely," and "pretty" can be added to emphasis the bad-ness of the day and change the phrase slightly, but its overall meaning is a constant. and what does this phrase mean? well, you hear it every time someone is forced to consider something, well...bad.

a fuel cell fails? "pretty bad day." you have to do an emergency eva to close the payload bay doors? "really bad day." we have to abort to spain? "very bad day." all 3 main engines shut down at srb ignition and the aerodynamic forces tear the shuttle stack apart, resulting in a catastrophic event including loss of vehicle and crew? "extremely bad day."

the thing i love is the way that, in typical government style (reserved and calm to a fault), everything that can possibly go wrong is covered under the umbrella of "bad day." this amuses me to no end. i will now begin to use this phrase everywhere i possibly can. i love it.

i voted yesterday, and unlike becca's scantron experience in galveston county, my voting experience in harris country rocked. it's the first time i've ever actually voted in person (after the absentee ballots of college), and they had these really cool little computer machines with a scrolling wheel and buttons. and then when you were done you pressed the "cast ballot" button, and a picture of a waving american flag popped up on screen. it was fun. all 3 major candidates (governor, u.s. senate, u.s. house) that i voted for won. yay for my vote.

and if my words aren't enough, take what iffy had on his away message yesterday: "Democracy is cool. If you take your "I voted" sticker to Krispy Kreme, you get a free doughnut. Of course, I ganked my sticker. Boo-ya."

(11:18 a.m.)

hmm.

sarah:Status is important to you and your ability to achieve success and earn money. You have a need to be noticed and seek status. You have much enthusiasm with a driving attitude toward achievement in life. You enjoy a challenge. You can take thought-directed actions. You have a need to be up front. You work hard to achieve material success through your own efforts.

royston:You enjoy a challenge. You can take thought-directed actions. You have a great deal of loyalty to those you love. You have much inner strength. Your independence and freedom are important to you. You have a need to earn money to prove your success to society and must learn the true value of material gains and status. Your privacy is important to you. You have a rich inner life. You need to learn flexibility. You can handle details well. You have a methodical mind.

graybeal:You strive for perfection and worry when things don't turn out just so. You enjoy doing a job well. You tend to procrastinate. You have a lack of confidence in your mental abilities and do not like being forced into giving your opinion. You have a need to be up front. You must learn to give the same freedom to others that they want for themselves. You are a constructive thinker. You have a need for monetary security. You can be quite inventive and quite curious. You have a diplomatic flair to your nature. Equality and fairness are important to you.

i've decided that debbie is a good friend to have, seeing as how she's always coming up with free stuff. ;) yesterday she asked if i wanted to go to the movies on a two-person free pass she got at the same time as the free passes to six flags that we used last week. (they gave her a free movie pass because she had to wait for the six flags passes--sheesh.) anyway. we headed to the cinemark with intentions to go see "i spy" but they wouldn't let us use a pass for that. hmph. so we decided to get tickets for "tuck everlasting," because the free pass was only good on november 4 and it seemed a shame not to use two free movies. but when we got inside the theater and realized that no one even checks tickets on a random monday night, we headed into the theater for "i spy" and watched it. mwa ha ha.

you know, i've talked about doing that many times--buying a ticket for one movie but seeing another, in an attempt to get around a sold-out screening, or (before i was 17) to get into an r-rated movie--but had never actually done it. yes, debbie and i are such rebels. oooh. watch out world.

anyway. that was pretty much my entire evening. i came home, read a few more chapters of my current book ("the climb" by anatoli boukreev, it's another account of the may 1996 everest expeditions, a different point of view from krakauer's "into thin air" that i just finished reading), went to bed.

more training today, and not just reading and computer stuff so i don't get to relax at home while doing it. :( ah well. softball is cancelled again due to rain, and tonight i'll actually have to study a bit to prepare for the shuttle test tomorrow. training is almost over!

so i have four more days of training academy. this morning, however, the only things on the schedule were reading a couple sections in the scom (shuttle crew operations manual) and doing a cbt (computer based training) lesson. since those don't require my physical presence in the building, i've elected to stay home and do my reading here. i can't do the cbt from here because i can't get to the internal network, but i'll just do it later this afternoon. it's sort of a nice feeling to be home on a monday morning, so i'm full taking advantage.

i slept until 9:00, skipping fitness class, in an attempt to fend off the cold that is trying to invade my head. i seem to get colds about four times a year; basically, every time the season changes. summer to fall is the worst, because it's usually such a sudden change. hot one day, cold the next. in the past, i've had little hope of escaping these inevitable colds because i've been in school, and have never been getting enough sleep. here, however, i have hopes of preventing it. for five days now i've been feeling slightly achy and run-down, but it hasn't developed into the full-blown stuffy nose yet. yesterday i woke up with a bad sore throat, so i took it easy and slept 9 hours last night. today my throat still hurts, but my nose is still free of snot and that's a good thing. i think another extensive night of sleep tonight is in order.

anyway. just in case you all cared about my health.

as i said, i didn't do anything yesterday. not a thing. i had been planning on cleaning, but i didn't. i am such a procrastinator when it comes to cleaning my apartment; i'm always saying i'm going to clean, and rarely actually cleaning. and i do little bits at a time, so it seems like there is always something else that needs to be done, and by the time i finish the rounds, the first thing needs to be cleaned again. woe is me, it's an endless cycle. ah well. that's life. or rather, that's me.

i can't believe it's november already.

it has been a counting crows sort of weekend. i can't explain it, but there are some days and times when i find myself skipping through my mixed cds in the car, searching for a counting crows song. any song, as long as its them. no other music (with the possible exception of james taylor) feels quite right. something to do with calming me down, i think, during the times when i need to be calmed.

this weekend has been like that.

every time i open the mailbox and see something from france, i break into a grin, and today's envelope made me laugh out loud. inside the envelope was a postcard of aix-en-provence and...an ikea catalog in french. {happy sigh} i miss nick so much. january is too far away.

the haunted houston tour we took last night made for a fun evening. matt, gavin, jen, becca, debbie and i headed downtown and met up with a bunch of other people to tour "the most haunted sites in houston." we began at a building that is currently a spaghetti warehouse restaurant, but used to be a factory and then the home of an apothecary. from there we went to houston's first cemetary where many of the soldiers from the battle of san jacinto are buried, then to a haunted bar, and finally to the jefferson davis hospital, which has been abandoned since the 1920s or something. now, this building would be creepy enough without someone telling you that there were 10,000 bodies buried under the ground.

all in all the tour was fun, if cheesy.

(6:38 p.m.)

do you ever feel like people can read your mind? three things:

one, as i was in the middle of writing the paragraph about nick and france, my phone rang and my first thought was "i wonder if that's nick," despite the fact that it was almost too late for him to be calling (almost 1 a.m. his time). and it was nick. he got back from his weekend in paris and was stretching before going to bed. it was great to hear his voice, and by mutual decision we are now starting a countdown of the days until i go to france. 75 days.

two, as soon as i got off the phone and posted the above update, i read something carter wrote about how he feels that counting crows soothe his soul.

three, lately i have been having an unusual amount of really vivid dreams. last night i had two, one that was really more of a nightmare than a dream. after the other weird things today, it made me feel the need to call the person who showed up in the nightmare, and make sure they're ok.

another soccer game this morning, another loss. but we're getting better. the score was 2-1, and we took more shots on goal than they did...it's just that more of theirs went in. i started out very sluggishly, but i think i played ok. i had a couple good stops and crosses.

halloween was a lot of fun. debbie and i greeted about a half dozen trick-or-treaters at her apartment, and when cari finally arrived we headed over to gavin and jen's for a few hours. they'd decorated their house really well, and they even had foggy punch (via dry ice). about 9:00, we left their place and headed to chip and jeremy's apartment where there were people from wall to wall, so many that it was hard to move around. but it was great to see everyone, including some people i hadn't seen since i'd gotten back to houston in the first place. there were two other girls dressed as devils (sara and deidra), and we outnumbered the two angels (cari and barbara) so we terrorized the place. mwa ha ha. it was a good time, even though i was soooo tired yesterday during training. i almost fell asleep, but buzz poked me. ;)

anyway. tonight we are going on a haunted tour of houston. something matt, one of the guys in my group at work, set up.

ok, maybe i'll write more later when i have more time, but apparently i need to make an update to clarify what i was saying yesterday about friends in houston, comments that were spawned after reading becca's daily update.

becca and i are not engaged in some sort of crazy war to see who can be more popular, or have more friends. becca and i are both big enough and mature enough people to be past that phase. and as a note to all the members of becca's family who read this, trust me, she's not unhappy. if you don't believe her, maybe you can believe me. {sigh} she was just talking about how she's making some really good friends here, which in turn made me think about my friends here. and that of course reminded me of how lucky i was to be able to get a full-time job in a place where i already had many friends. simple, normal train of thought, nothing to get up in arms about. geez people, can we talk about overreacting? i'm not trying to insult anyone here.

one of the most frustrating parts of keeping a daily journal is having to hear misinterpretations of things i write.