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Thursday, August 30, 2001

passing thoughts before i head "home"

agggggh! it is still raining! make it stop! (note to self: don't ever move to seattle.) phil is hoping it keeps raining until our carpet floods again like it did with tropical storm allison in june, and we get more free rent.

this trip to atlanta is maybe the least-planned thing i've done in a while. ;) oh, i have a general idea of what i'm doing, but for the most part i've just been saying "we'll figure it out when i get there." i suppose i should find out exactly what time my flight is today....ah, 10:15. so i'll leave work in a half hour. my roommates thought i was crazy for coming in at all, i mean, i could've slept late instead of going in even earlier than i normally do (i'm usually not here till 8:30)! but i had to come in and check on my sim runs. yes, i am a big dork. anyway, in the 15 hours since i began them last night when i went home, 78 of my 114 runs finished. the others are running well, and will finish maybe by this afternoon. i'll of course be gone, but the lovely data will be waiting for me when i get back on tuesday. yay! i will have numbers to present in my exit pitch!

i walked in with nick this morning. it's been raining for 4 days straight, and the guy still hasn't bought an umbrella, so he was lucky he found arrived at the same time i did. i feel like i haven't seen him in ages, yet he works right down the hall. i guess we've both been busy. we're both trying to finish up our projects at work, and he's been helping debbie get settled in her new apartment, and i've been going out of town. anyway. i need to spend some time with that boy before we head to california.

ah, what a day, what a weekend. i'm off to plug my data into excel, then to the airport!

(10:16 p.m.)

i didn't know how good it would feel as i walked down the street from the marta station to the 'nique office this afternoon, on my way to meet my sister and my friends. it was fantastic. i'm not trying to be too cheesy, but tech really does have one of those cliched "special places" in my heart. though i'm slowly coming to terms with the fact my life is changing and that my undergraduate years are over, i will always, always miss this place.

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

who'da thunk i'd wanna be a journalist

so i read both becca and karen's diaries this morning, and both had more references to the good ol' technique that i reminisced about yesterday. after reading what they wrote, i could write a whole entry covering more of the silly things i miss about the paper. everything from skipping aeroelasticity on thursday mornings (die, aeroelasticity, die!) to the covert "to hell with georgia" assault on the uga campus. unlike becca, it wasn't the writing that got me going. i was just the opposite. it was the layout and copy editing that made me happy. making it look pretty, making it sound pretty.

anyway, i could carry on in this vein for pages. instead, i'll just say that out of everything i got involved in during my five years at georgia tech, the technique was my favorite. by far. hands down.

listening to: counting crows, "have you seen me lately"

i love this song! at the concert last friday, i asked leila what her favorite counting crows song was, and we began to list songs until finally we both decided that we can't pick one favorite. depending on my mood, i choose a different song. "anna begins," or "raining in baltimore," or "walkaways," or "love and addiction." but "have you seen me lately" probably pops up most frequently. sometimes the electric version, sometimes the acoustic.

it's raining outside, again. i'm glad to be getting out of town this weekend, and hopefully away from some the wetness. (pause to check the weather for atlanta) hmm, looks like it may rain there too. oh well.

and now for my dorky moment of the day: gavin and i got the postprocesser code working this morning! it interpolates! it interpolates and gives the correct answer! wahoo!

Tuesday, August 28, 2001

happy cloudy mornings

every once in a while i am surprised to find out that someone reads this page that i'd never expect. (hello dr. green!)

so on my way in this morning, i passed a big truck that said "jake's fresh foods" on the side. my thought process from that moment on should be obvious. jake's = ice cream = a place i like to hang out = atlanta = this weekend! yay! i will be in atlanta this weekend, and i will go to jake's and get some chocolate slap yo mama ice cream. jake's has the best ice cream in the world, even better than amy's. (shh, don't tell anyone in houston i said that, they'll think i'm a traitor.)

anyway. chris emailed me this morning with something that just made my entire day. now it doesn't matter that it's raining cats and dogs outside for the second day in a row, because i'm happy.

while waiting on my sims, i have been reading the freshman issue of the technique. it's the first "real" issue in almost two years that i haven't been involved in. {sigh} i miss da 'nique. i miss deadline nights, staying up until the wee hours of the morning, taking breaks to get coffee, making slow laps around the student services building with christina when i had to get away from the computer, chris holing up in his office. i miss the free cds and movie passes, even from the bands i've never heard of and the ones that should never have been allowed to cut a record in the first place, and i miss theme deadlines, singing along with mixed cds, alan being pissy, alan trying to remain pissy even when i can tell he wants to smile. i miss fighting with pagemaker, dancing in the office, lying on the couches, macs, hugs from daniel, my ever-overflowing desk. ah, they were good times. good times.

yeah, i'm ready to move on. i'm reaching the end of another houston summer, and every bone in my body is telling me it's time to go back to school. is it possible to be both excited and nervous at the same time? i think so. i feel both ways about going to stanford. i don't think it rains as much there. yes, it's still raining here. they've issued a flood warning. i hope i don't get washed away. ;)

(4:56 p.m.)

i just wanted to say that i love my group. they are by far the coolest people i have ever worked with here. i didn't accept the job offer last fall because i wanted to go to grad school, but also because i couldn't see myself fitting in with any of the groups i'd worked with before. but this summer is different. instead of being "the co-op," i'm treated like a real team member. i can see myself becoming a part of this group. i can see myself working here.

Monday, August 27, 2001

football and friends

listening to: eve 6, "open road song"

i love this song. it reminds me of living in harris.

it's looking ominous outside this morning. big dark clouds, and windy. thunder too. it's very odd, because we rarely get rain in the mornings...it's much, much more of a late afternoon, sub-tropical thing. oh well. i managed to make it in from the parking lot without getting wet, so all is well.

i had a very relaxing weekend in austin with leila and brian. yesterday we watched the tech game, which was televised all the way over here in texas. (yay!) the team played like crap, but at least we won. cnnsi probably said it simplest and best: "it's a start: no. 10 georgia tech unimpressive in opener, but wins." oh, i get so nervous watching them play...i had to distract myself with leila's puzzle book yesterday to avoid too much yelling at the tv. everybody's saying this is tech's year. the new york post ranked us number one yesterday. wow.

leila and brian are so funny. most of the time i don't remember that they're married; they just seem like really good friends. they tease and pick at each other, but never really get mad. they make each other laugh, which i love to see, especially when it's brian laughing, because half the time he's so serious. but that's what it's supposed to be like, right? to be married to someone who is also your best friend.

and here it is, monday morning again. considering that i'm taking off thursday and friday to go to atlanta, and monday is a paid holiday, i have only 10 days of work left--three days this week, four next, three the week after that. then two days to pack, and i'm on the road again. except this time i'll be heading west. somehow, the summer managed to fly by even though i haven't really done anything but sit on the couch watching baseball. (of course that's not entirely true, but it kind of feels true.) it's been quiet. even more, it's been good.

Saturday, August 25, 2001

hangin' with the homies in austin

here i am in leila and brian's apartment in austin. if you know leila and brian (and me, for that matter), it won't be a surprise to you that i'm updating my diary even while visiting friends. they're the king and queen of computers, or something like that. ;)

i called kent this afternoon to wish him a happy 21st birthday. i wonder what they are all doing for his birthday tonight. ah, sometimes i miss atlanta. when i called, he and carter were visiting christina! i'm so jealous that everyone else gets to see her all the time now that she's moved to atlanta. i can't wait to see her later this week! if only i had a car when i go to visit! i don't know how i'm going to get anywhere without being a nuisance to my friends.

anyway, it's been a fun weekend. leila and i headed half an hour down the road to san marcos last night to see the counting crows at southwest texas state university. i believe they use the word "university" rather loosely; i don't know if i've ever seen more girls with less clothing than i saw last night. the audience was really disappointing--it was like when ben folds five came to georgia tech, and everyone went just because it was the thing to do that night, not because they were really big fans of the band. there weren't many big counting crows fans there...just a bunch of college students with nothing else to do. but the show was great, and they played some songs from the new album they're working on, and adam rambled about a film fest going on this week in austin. i love how adam really talks to the audience, telling stories and commenting on life in general. it's much more entertaining than just saying "hey" like most bands do.

in related austin news, brian and i are being way more than civil. (ha, kent!) actually, brian and i get along just fine, we just like to whine and pick at each other. i like him.

and i've decided that i can definitely see why so many people love austin. it doesn't quite feel like i'm in texas anymore! there are hills, for one thing, and it doesn't seem as hot as it is down by the gulf. it was gorgeous outside today--blue sky, big puffy white clouds, green trees--and the entire city just feels calmer and cleaner than houston.

we went to this great restaurant called the salt lick for lunch. mmmm, good texas bbq. it's literally in the middle of nowhere; leila described the way to get there as "you drive until you truly think you must have passed it, until every muscle in your body is telling you to turn the car around...then it's right around the corner." we ordered family style dinner, which means they just keep bringing food until you can't fit anything else in your stomach. it was our one meal for the day, and it was sooooo good.

we then saw "jay and silent bob strike back" at the theater...it was ok. funny, but definitely just one huge inside joke. if you haven't seen any of the other kevin smith movies, i wouldn't recommend it. the list of famous people in the cast is impressive at least; i could have done without all the fart jokes but hey, that's to be expected. anyway. ok movie.

well. i'm gonna go grab something to drink and hang out some more. tomorrow's the first football game of the year...and they're showing it on tv even in texas!

Friday, August 24, 2001

just the facts, ma'am

listening to: eve 6, "how much longer"

so i'm on a bit of an eve 6 kick right now. anyway. i've decided that i want to go take a ride in a hot air balloon sometime. this weekend is the ballunar festival in conjunction with the jsc open house, and this morning as i drove to work, there were dozens of hot air balloons floating around clear lake. it was beautiful.

i finally replied to shun's email yesterday, and he responded in minutes saying, among other things, that all the rocket and space stuff on this webpage sounds a bit nerdy. hmph! i know he's just kidding--after all, he's spent time working down here too--but his comment makes the following paragraphs necessary for those of you who may not actually know me:

at the moment, i live in houston and i work for nasa. when i mention someplace called "jsc," i'm talking about the johnson space center--home to mission control and all the astronauts. i am a co-op, which means i'm not quite a full-time employee, but i'm more than an intern. basically, i alternate periods of school with periods of work. this is my 6th work tour, and i work in the descent analysis division doing trajectory analysis for the x-38. i love my project this summer, but hate sitting in front of a computer all day (which, unfortunately, is a necessity, because trajectory calculations can't really be done by hand...it'd take ages). fortunately, the people i work with are really cool, and make my computer-filled days much more than bearable.

last may, i finished my bachelor's degree in aerospace engineering at georgia tech. in a month, i will be starting graduate school at stanford and by next june i should have a master's degree in aerospace engineering. i've been told many times that space is my passion, and though i'm slow to agree with that diagnosis (mainly because "passion" seems like such a strong word), it's probably accurate. i can't really explain why i love space, except to say that the fact that we can leave the planet and survive in a completely alien environment is utterly and completely fascinating. in any case, my interest in space is definitely a big part of who i am, and what i'll be doing with my life in the near future.

of course i like to think there's more to me than school and work...i love movies, and reading (when i have time), and writing, and spending time with cool people. as far as "real" interests go, there are probably three notable things to mention. first is the fact that i was an editor on the newspaper at georgia tech (entertainment section), and really enjoyed the part of my job where i got to basically design what my section looked like each week, and choose what kind of content was printed. second is that i also like making webpages and seeing what kind of interesting (but not overly flashy or complicated) layouts i can invent. and finally, i also like photography, though i'm not too great at it because i haven't been doing it for long.

i get a lot of personal satisfaction from doing those types of graphic design/layout/visual/creative stuff. i've been told that i'm good at it...which is probably just to boost my ego, in which case it worked. but i like to think it's true, and that i really do have at least some artistic talent despite my engineering-oriented brain. someday, i'd love to have the opportunity to turn web design or print layout/editing into a serious interest. we'll see.

anyway. so that's a bit of background.

Thursday, August 23, 2001

empty nights, full days

listening to: nsync, "pop"

ron is in college station for the rest of the week, and it's weird to have just phil and me in the apartment. after only two weeks, i've already gotten used to having two roommates instead of one, and i actually like it better than before. ah well. ron will be back on saturday.

today is a coop scoop day, which means i haven't gotten any real work done all morning because i've been doing the coop scoop. i love making it, but i hate the way it eats into my work time, especially since i have so much to do in my last few weeks. thankfully this will probably be the last issue i do...i've already talked one of the new co-ops into taking it over.

i've been tweaking the layout for this page. just little things, to the layout of the text itself, and not the overall design, because soon (i swear it really will be soon) i'll be redesigning my webpage, and placing this page within the new design. then...yeah, it'll just be cool again.

Wednesday, August 22, 2001

my friends rock even when we're far apart

listening to: eve 6, "on the roof again"

argh. the diaryland server crashed earlier, and i lost the entry i wrote this morning. so now i'm trying to remember what i wrote earlier.

sometimes things have a way of just working themselves out. yesterday as i left work, i was feeling sort of sad. classes started at tech on monday, and it felt really weird to not be there. of the friends i spent time with last year, i can only think of two (in addition to myself) who left atlanta--my roommates becca and karen. everyone else either took a job in the city, or is still in school. even anit, at medical school in augusta, can go back home for the weekend. it made me sad to think that i'm not there with them, and that they are having all sorts of fun without me.

then a flurry of phone calls reminded me that even though i'm not in atlanta or even on the east coast, they're still all thinking about me. my dad called as i walked in the door, just to say hi. about an hour later, christina called with the fantastic news that she was able to walk (with help) this week, faster than even the doctors expected her to! i was still smiling from our conversation a half hour later when chris called to say hi and to make some plans for next weekend, when i take advantage of my labor day paid holiday to fly back to georgia for a few days. then i continued the streak by calling my mom, and finally by calling kent to make sure he'd be in town while i am, and not off somewhere working.

when all was said and done, i wasn't sad anymore. and that was a great thing.

(4:24 p.m.)

my entire group just marched outside and stood on the lawn between the duck ponds as the shuttle passed overhead. dozens of people dotted the pond area, watching and waiting and listening. it was such a nice feeling to be standing among people as enthusiastic about space as me. if i'd been anywhere else in the world, i would've been standing outside straining my ears and looking stupid.

it was too bright outside to see the plasma trail (even though some people convinced themselves that a slow-moving weather ballon was the shuttle...nevermind that they were looking north, and the shuttle was passing to the south...hmm...go figure), but about 4 minutes after the orbiter passed overhead, the sonic boom finally reached the ground. i'd never heard a sonic boom before, and thought it was really cool. and talk about fast! by the time we heard the boom, the shuttle was already crossing the florida peninsula.

Tuesday, August 21, 2001

they're all babies!

listening to: michelle branch, everywhere

and now we add karen's marshall chronicles to the diary list. yikes, diaryland is contagious! actually, it makes me happy to finally be able to read someone else's thoughts and stuff, after years of being the only one of my friends with an online journal.

so the new fall co-ops started work yesterday, all 35 of them. thirty five!!! that is a huge number of new guys; when i started co-oping back in the olden days, i started with 15-18 others. hmm. i know it was less than 20. and geez, these new guys are all so young! when i said i'd started co-oping in 1997, and started college in 1996, one of them laughed and said "i was a freshman in high school in 1996!" argh. they are really young.

sadly, i don't feel as much connection with the co-ops as i used to. most of my co-op friends have graduated and come back full-time, or gone somewhere else entirely. most of the co-ops now have unfamiliar faces, and it's harder to get to know them. they look at me as the elder grad student; i look at them as the naive underclassmen. it helps to remember that i was once a bright-eyed new co-op...but it's still weird. you wouldn't think four years would make that much of a difference.

last night phil and i ended up "in charge" of the first night activities, and as we drove home, we kind of looked at each other and phil said he felt like a camp counselor. exactly! we had gone to dinner, then putt-putt, then ice cream, and it felt like we had to coax the new kids into going each time. "ok, who wants to go play putt-putt? ok, now who wants to go get ice cream? yay! let's go!" the need for the hand-holding will disappear as they learn their way around, and see what there is to do in the area, but it was still weird. i think phil and i have already fallen into the rolls of father and mother co-op.

Monday, August 20, 2001

beer and college...what a pair

ron read somewhere that the state of texas accounts for a third of the beer consumption in the country. i don't doubt it. this morning as i was walking from my apartment to my car to go to work, i passed two guys in t-shirts with the sleeves torn off walking around the complex, each with a bud light firmly clenched in their hand. this was at 7:50 a.m. yeah. i laughed. texas continually amuses me.

and then i got to work and found out from becca about this article about college rankings and their accuracy (or lack therof) is right on target. here are only some of the good quotes:

• "it would embarrass many colleges and universities to admit just what happens on campus and how little attention they pay to students."
• "graduate programs have long produced individuals expert in their discipline but awkward in the classroom."
• "promotion and tenure procedures on most campuses provide slim rewards for good teaching; professors are often released from teaching in order to focus on research, but it almost never works the other way around."
• "the highly influential u.s. news & world report annual guide to "america's best colleges" pays scant attention to measures of learning or good educational practices."
• "the rankings...[tabulate] things such as percent of faculty with a doctorate (to measure the quality of the professors) and sat scores of the freshman class (to get at quality of the students). that's like measuring the quality of a restaurant by calculating how much it paid for silverware and food: not completely useless, but pretty far from ideal."
• "u.s. news originally set out to create a seemingly scientific rankings system that would place well-known universities---particularly harvard, yale, and princeton---on top. those are the most common places where magazine editors earned their degrees, and the public expects to see them on top."
• "u.s. news only includes one vastly less reliable measure of [student] satisfaction---the percentage of alumni who donate---which depends in large part on alumni wealth and how many pesky sophomores man phone banks in exchange for pizza and t-shirts."
• "there's something contradictory in a magazine making a mint off of a ranking system called "america's best colleges" that virtually ignores educational quality."
• "students at schools with strong research orientations display decreased satisfaction with faculty and the overall quality of instruction, decreased leadership skills, and decreased self-reported growth in public speaking skills and other measures of student development."

both of my schools--georgia tech and stanford--take immense pride in their research; i know that georgia tech suffers a decreased emphasis on students, and i won't be surprised if i get to stanford and find that attitude as well. i think it's inexcusable that students don't get the attention they deserve, and that we sit through classes with professors who don't know how to teach. a university couldn't exist without its students, yet many of those institutions seem to have taken the opinion that students exist only to rake in their tuition money.

that's one of the reasons i'd like to be a professor someday. i want to focus on students, and be a good teacher. i know i'll have to do research too, but what really excites me is the opportunity to interact with college kids. having just finished five years as an undergraduate, i realize that people like dr. seitzman and dr. kamat influenced my life in many ways. they were great teachers, and in addition to that, they were great mentors. i went to them for advice about classes, and about my grad school decision. they were more than my professors; they were my friends. they taught me things both in and out of the classroom. i think all students should have the opportunity for that kind of interaction. plus, i think it'd be cool to affect someone else's life like a few of my professors influenced mine.

Saturday, August 18, 2001

saturday baseball + arts and crafts

ah, saturday. 'twas nice. went to the astros game, where a 21-year-old named carlos hernandez struck out 7 and walked only one on his way to pitching 7 shut-out innings. then on to freebirds for a huge burrito, amy's for some mmm mmm good ice cream, back to freebirds to make a space shuttle out of tin foil. came home. "waiting for guffman" was on tv, ironic because courtney and i just watched "best in show" (same director and cast) last night. thought of kent and laughed at all the funny parts for him, and was almost inspired by parker posey to go to the dairy queen for a blizzard, or "just a coke." checked my fantasy baseball team and went up 1.5 points today on the strength of my pitching. wished my team could remember how to hit though. now getting ready to go running, since the sun has finally gone down and houston is only as hot as hell, instead of the usual 5 degrees hotter than hell. ha--edgar said that this afternoon and made me laugh. anyway. off i go.

Friday, August 17, 2001

racing against a vomit comet

the boys flew on the vomit comet yesterday. i told daniel i'd be there at 11:30 when the plane landed, and so i left work around 10:45, thinking i'd watch the last couple parabolas on the downlink and then see the plane come in. well, as i'm sitting at a stoplight about a mile and a half from ellington, i glance in the rear view mirror and see the plane on its approach to the runway! crap, it's half an hour early! so i speed down highway 3, seeing the plane touch down and begin braking, then i turn into ellington and whiz down the road that runs along the fence while the plane is moving down the taxiway parallel to me. i park my car, jump out, run through the hangar and find alisa and courtney literally a minute before the door opens up and the fly boys climb out.

they had a great time. no one on the entire plane threw up--only the third time there's ever been a "no kill" flight. i wanna go again. today the girls fly, and i'll make sure i don't cut it so close again when i go to meet them.

i just realized yesterday that i only have three and a half weeks of work left, and i have so much to do in that time. i am gonna be working really hard to finish my project, since all the background work has taken longer than expected.

becca's going to egypt and morocco in october. i'm so envious. i want to go too!

so this guy in my group named matt has put me on his email list, and sends out emails in the mornings with links to news in the twa 800 crash, or the oklahoma city bombing, or basically anything that has to do with government coverups. since we're both federal government employees, i find it sort of ironic that he is so distrusting of the very entity that employs him. anyway, today he sent this link, which contains the statement that "science is nothing more than a long series of corrected mistakes." i'm not going to argue the pros and cons of that idea, but it just reminds me of the heated debate carter and kent and i had in a train station in...switzerland? i think it was in switzerland. anyway. random memory.

and then, this side note from the article makes me laugh: "would that [anthropologists] could be as succinct as astronomers. the beginning of everything? the big bang. a big red star? a red giant. a small white star? a white dwarf. and so on." yeah! go astronomers!

Thursday, August 16, 2001

weightless haircuts for boys with mops of blond hair

ugh. i despise arguments and disagreements. the one i am currently having is making me ill. but i think maybe it is over. i have been listening to counting crows, "have you seen me lately" a lot. the version from the unplugged cd. i do that when i feel badly about hurting someone's feelings. i don't know why, but the song just seems to fit, or something weird like that.

i think we will be ok though. i hope so, because i will really need the friendly face in california.

daniel (and robbie) fly on the vomit comet today. the boy says he got a haircut, but i won't believe it until i see him. i told him i'd be there at 11:30 when the plane lands, and i'd take him out to the tradition post-flight lunch at pe-te's. if he really did get his hair cut, i even offered to pay. boy needs a hair cut! we went swimming the other day and when wet, his hair in the back was as long as mine.

last night was fun. i didn't really do anything special. after work i went to target and got a bunch of random things, then i came home and packed it all in a box and this morning, i shipped it. away it goes. then i sat around and worked on my knitting. phil says he keeps hoping to see me just clicking the needles and having yarn fall away like water, like you see in the cartoons when an old grandma is knitting at light speed. unfortunately, that's not how it works. the other night i got really frustrated, and ended up just starting over, because the yarn started to get all frayed and i kept on missing stitches. and jen is gone and can't help me anymore. poop.

Wednesday, August 15, 2001

the milky way isn't just a candy bar

{sigh} i read stories like this one and it just makes me sad. 99 percent of the people in the continental united states and europe can't look up and see a truly dark sky. they can't see the milky way, because it's too damn light outside.

i remember when my dad and i used to bundle up in our warmest clothes and go down to the tennis courts behind our house in the winter to lie on the ground and look at the stars. i saw the andromeda galaxy, and the orion nebula, and memorized many of the winter constellations. i learned star names like rigel, betelguese, castor, pollux, capella, aldebaran, sirius, and procyon, and knew where to find them all. i could spot orion's belt in a heartbeat. in the summers when we visited the farm where it was darker, i could spot the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon. i watched the big dipper and casseopeia rotate around polaris, saw the great square, picked out vega, deneb, and antares, and discovered my favorite constellation of all--scorpio.

granted, one of the reasons i was so interested in learning all this astronomy was because i loved the stars, and space. still, i wish everyone knew where to find the big dipper, or how to pick out the bright shoulders, feet, and belt of orion. i think most people were capable of doing that years ago; today, we've become accustomed to the fact that the night sky has a permanent orange tint from the streetlights and neon signs that cover our cities and highways.

i just think it's sad.

Tuesday, August 14, 2001

random things about yesterday

i had something i was going to write about this morning, but now i've forgotten. i hate it when that happens. hmm.

i was so productive at work yesterday it was scary. some days i just get in the groove, and yesterday was the first of those days in a long time. it was nice. my project is really picking up again...i have a lot to get done in the five weeks i have left. it's hard to believe i've already been here for two months! life is wonderfully normal. i almost miss the stress and sleepless nights of georgia tech. almost.

i do miss the people though. i wish i could have been there with the old 119 crowd last saturday for carter's birthday.

oh! i remembered what i was going to write. i had a nightmare last night, which i know is not that unusual, but i haven't had a nightmare in months...maybe even years. normally i don't even remember my dreams, but this summer i have been having tons. very vivid ones too, not in the sense that they were disturbing or discomforting, but just in the sense that i can remember all the details of what happened in them. last night's was a nightmare though...i woke up with my heart pounding. some guy that i didn't even recognize went crazy, and started shooting people who had come out to this big auditorium to see an nsync concert. he was all upset because his girlfriend had broken up with him, or something, and i didn't recognize his girlfriend either. i was on stage dancing when all of a sudden all the nsync boys ran outside to confront this guy with the gun. i ran outside too, but then i went back inside to help all the people who were panicking. then my alarm went off.

very weird. rather disturbing. also, i don't know why no one i knew was there. it was just me, the nsync boys, and a bunch of strangers. hmm. ok, i'm going to move on because this is just freaky.

last night the roomies and i went out to dinner and had some of the best barbeque i've ever had. oh man, i can't believe i didn't discover ryan's smokehouse until last night! and it's so close! mmmmm.

afterwards, the boys went to play guitar and drums in the garage at chris and edgar's place (the drumset is too loud to play in the apartment), and i came home...and decided to play my flute! i haven't played since our flute choir concert back in april, and it felt really good to practice again, even if my pinky was throbbing when i finished. i think the fact that my pinky finger is always sore after playing probably means i don't hold the instrument quite correctly, but after 14 years of playing, and playing well...it seems to work for me.

i think my sim has almost finished its run. off to check.

Monday, August 13, 2001

working hard or hardly working?

i don't know why i never update my diary over the weekends. it's not like i don't have internet access at home or anything. at work, writing something is part of my morning routine, just like drinking coffee, checking cnn.com for news, checking cnnsi.com for sports, checking my email, and cleaning up my desk to find what i need to work on that day.

doug, gil, and rich are back from vacation, and ray comes back tomorrow. though it is nice to have my group whole again, i must say that it was fun last week with four out of the eight people in my group on vacation...especially since the four of us who were here are all under the age of 25. we have fun. friday afternoon, we watched the launch and then came back to the office to play some foam basketball. after about 10 minutes of that, we stopped, kinda looked at each other, and said "well, time to go home!" i really love my group this co-op tour. they are awesome, and make work much more fun.

anyway. my weekend was fairly quiet, but fun. i like having two roommates even more than i liked having one! ron and phil and i hang out in the apartment and just talk, or cook (!), or listen to phil play the guitar. he is really good. yesterday he taught me the e chord, so now i know five chords: g, d, c, a, and e, and i'm getting better at changing smoothly between them. i cut my fingernails, and that helped a lot.

yesterday the three of us went to the driving range, and they taught me how to hit a golf ball. i ripped a nice blister open on my palm (geez, between learning guitar and golf and running into couches, my hands and feet are taking a beating), but hey, i'm a natural golfer! i'm the next tiger woods! hmm. well, i was able to hit the ball off the tee more consistently than ron, even if the ball only went 100-125 yards, and so i was happy.

last night i got to go out to eat with daniel and courtney and alisa and a few others. i thought this summer was going to be lonely in the sense that i wasn't going to have all the visitors that i got last summer...but that hasn't turned out to be the case at all. i love visitors!

Friday, August 10, 2001

people coming and people going

i have the convertible for the weekend. this should be fun.

jason is leaving on saturday to go back to school, and i'm really going to miss him. i'd forgotten what it was like to attend a school on quarters like i now do, and have co-op tours that always overlap others. you start work late, they finish work early. mainly, it's just that i never want to say goodbye...i'm really bad at saying goodbye.

last night jason and chris came over, and phil got back from austin, so the three of them and ron and me watched the braves-astros game. the braves lost. {sigh} it was a one-run game, and i was the only one rooting for them. actually though, i don't think phil was rooting for anybody. he made the comment that "isn't it cool that in this apartment, the one who knows the least about baseball is not the girl?" he and ron have taken to calling me "the woman" at times. that would probably bother most girls, but i think it's kind of funny. i like hanging out with the guys.

the georgia tech vomit comet team is in town, but i haven't seen them yet, and dan has already commandeered them into going to some concert tonight, so i don't get to hang out with them today either. i talked to daniel and robbie last night though, and made them promise we'll do something tomorrow. i'm trying to think of the best things to show them in houston. turns out i'm horrible at giving tours of cities i actually live in...i never know what the "touristy" things are. well, the space center of course, but since i work there and they're going to get tours as part of their vomit comet stuff, that one's already covered. maybe we'll just drive to the beach in the convertible!

kent's leavin' on a jet plane today, back to atlanta. i didn't get to see him at all this week except for the fifteen minutes at denny's that i mentioned earlier. he was at work until after 1 a.m. last night. oh well. i'm just glad he was able to stay here for a weekend.

Thursday, August 09, 2001

tired of being tired

{sigh} someday soon, i will make this diary beautiful, and it will have some extraordinary layout instead of this boring "standard diaryland template" blue. so i think i've decided to use this service for a while. though my preference would be to host my diary on my own webpage (hmm...there may actually be a way to do that...i'll get back to you), i must admit that updating via the web is much easier than creating a new file each day like i was doing for my "countdown: 100 days" page. we'll see.

maybe i'll work on it tonight. i have to stop being such a lazy bum. every day i come home from work, fix some dinner, and then basically spend the rest of the evening on the couch watching tv, reading a magazine, or learning a new guitar chord. my biggest concern is that i'm tired all the time, even though i'm getting 7+ hours of sleep each night and haven't been doing anything strenuous. i don't know why i'm so tired. this has been kind of a boring summer, yet i can't really complain because i know it's been good for me. not always having something to do, somewhere to go...it's nice. but i feel lazy. i need to get some exercise, and get some energy so that i'm not so sleepy. i have a whole list of things i want to do, and i just need to get motivated to do them. ron said i wasn't like this last summer. i don't want to turn into a sloth.

in the meantime. so i really like reading becca's diary. one, it's fun to hear what she's up to in switzerland (i keep picturing her in montreaux, which is the only part of switzerland i've visited, even though she's in baden), and two, it's nice to read an online diary about someone's life other than my own.

last friday when we all left work, jsc was at hurricane preparedness level 4. apparently this means we have to put our computers in plastic bags in case the hurricane comes our way. nevermind the fact that we're on the third floor of the building. as my officemate, doug, said: "if it floods up here, forget about us--there are going to be people in oklahoma with problems." hee hee. i had forgotten about that funny story until i told it to kent yesterday during the 15 minutes i saw him at denny's. that silly boy, he is working so much, and so late. hopefully i will get to see him tonight, since tomorrow he goes back to atlanta for good. it has been nice just knowing he's here.

last night courtney, alisa, and daniel arrived in town. excitement!

Wednesday, August 08, 2001

deadly mosquitos

so as i was sitting on the couch last night scratching my 100 mosquito bites while my dinner was cooking, they announced on the news that "harris county health officials have found mosquitoes suspected of carrying the deadly st. louis encephalitis virus in storm sewers in southeast houston..." wonderful. perfect. now i'm going to itch and i'm going to die.

even better, "most people bitten by a mosquito that carries the virus have no disease symptoms. when symptoms occur, they include fever, headache, nausea, stiff neck and changes in mental function, such as sleepiness and disorientation." so basically, it's impossible to tell the difference between the normal life of a co-op and that of a co-op with encephalitis. great.

and on that note, i must say that my alarm clock and i are having issues. the past two mornings, i've overslept and gotten to work late. does that count as sleepiness?

so to recap, people, this may be my last diary entry because a) i have mosquito bites; b) i have sleepiness; and c) i have a sore throat (thought the symptoms don't list that, maybe it's one they've never seen before). yep, it's official, i'm going to die. {sob} goodbye cruel world!

anyway. back to work. ;)

Tuesday, August 07, 2001

swiss friends

i stole this exchange from becca's diary

overheard in the office...
canadian commenting on american ego: "you guys think you're god or something."
american student response: "no, we're one nation under god."

that amuses me so much. i am jealous that becca gets to live in exotic places for six months. (ok, so on the grand scale of things, maybe switzerland is not that exotic, but it's still pretty darn cool and i wish i could go live there too.) anyway, it doesn't surprise me to hear yet another non-american expressing distaste for american attitudes...because of course they're not wrong. americans are stereotyped as loud, inflexible, and rather obnoxious because for the most part, we are loud and inflexible and rather obnoxious. it's just a part of our culture.

when we were traveling through europe back at the beginning of the summer, i think we originally had intentions of trying to blend in a bit, and try to experience some of the culture. that didn't work. we were with friends, on vacation, seeing amazing sights and unusual people, and so we ended up just acting like normal. and of course the american definition of "normal" is much different from the european one.

not much to be done about it. we're different, that's all. little conversation exchanges like the one above just remind of that, and make me laugh.

anyway. so phil arrived last night, and our two bedroom, one dining room apartment became a three bedroom, no dining room domicile. it's weird, but it'll work until mid-september, when i leave for california. i felt bad for phil, because he had a horrible day--he got up at 5 a.m., the drive from georgia took an excrutiating and traffic-ridden 14 hours, the power in our apartment went out, and he got hot wax all over his face trying to blow out a candle we'd lit when the lights went out. he asked if ron and i could check on him when we got up this morning to make sure he hadn't burst into flames in the night. (thankfully, he hadn't.)

it's good to see him, and now i'm lucky enough to have two roommates who can always make the best of any situation. when the power went out, i figured we'd just sit around in the dark, thinking about how hot it would be if we didn't get air conditioning back soon. instead, ron pulled out a flashlight and the infamous pumpkin, phil dug out his guitar, i salvaged them each a beer from the fridge, and we all sang the got-no-electricity blues. it's gonna be a fun final month in houston.

Monday, August 06, 2001

lessons from the weekend

things i learned this weekend:

1) i taste good, at least if you are a mosquito. saturday night was the luau at nick, curt, debbie, and paul's place, and as a result of sitting by the pool in my swimsuit, i am now one big mosquito bite. last night i told ron "you would not believe how much i want to show you my ass right now" and he laughed really hard, but i have 32 mosquito bites on my butt alone (you know, right below where my bathing suit ended), and i didn't figure he'd believe me unless i showed him. oh well. he said he trusted me. imagine that! anyway, in addition to the 32 on my butt, i counted 23 on my right thigh, 13 on my left calf, 2 on my face, 1 on my shoulder blade...and then i got bored and stopped counting. i estimate i have somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 mosquito bites right now.

2) i like dancing on bars. yes, i was surprised at this one too. we went to bar houston on friday night, and got our groove thang on for a few hours. brienne and i took to the bar for a few songs, and i was quite entertained. very fun. will have to do it again.

3) i am a clumsy oaf. so i was minding my own business walking from the kitchen to the couch on saturday when a bear ran into our apartment and stomped on my toe, making it all black and blue and swollen and generally painful to walk on. either that, or i ran into the couch.

4) determining which pitcher gets the win in a baseball game can be arbitrary. random. i figured one of my guys would get a win for my fantasy baseball team because his team was winning when he left the game, even though he lasted less than 3 innings. apparently this is not so. apparently starters have to go 5 innings to be eligible for a win. see baseball rule 10.19.

5) i must have a convertible. nick let me borrow his car on saturday, so i got to cruise clear lake in a green mustang convertible. it was quite enjoyable, and i felt like a royal pimp, it was great.

6) don't leave the emergency brake on while driving. yeah. i knew this one. i just forgot. bad for the brake, and makes a funny smell.

Friday, August 03, 2001

hearing voices from salt lake city

{phone rings}
"hello?"
"hey, it's chris, hold on, i have someone who wants to talk to you..."
{hear the phone changing hands}
"hey sarah..."

christina!!!

i got to talk to christina on the phone last night, and it completely made my week. she sounds good, cheerful, tired, but ready to start getting better. she'd been able to move the toes on her right foot a half hour before i talked to her, and this morning chris told me she was able to move her right thumb and index finger slightly. the news just keeps getting better and better, and it makes me so happy. christina said i should come see her in kentucky, so it's set--i won't go to salt lake city; instead, i'll wait until she's moved to louisville and see her during her first few days in the rehab clinic.

it's been a stressful week, to say the least, and i'm glad it's friday. i don't have any plans for the weekend, but nick wants me to come to bar houston tonight, and he, curt, paul, and debbie are having a luau at their house tomorrow night. i'll go of course. other than that, i have a lot of things i want to take care of around the apartment. cleaning my room, working on my webpage (i have the idea for the new one, just no time to actually construct the thing), trying to get going again with my knitting while jen is still in town.

anyway.  oh! check out becca's newborn tales from the swiss nunnery page.

ooh. i was just glancing at the co-op webpage and found this picture of curt and me at the beach party. enjoying the jacuzzi. good, clean fun at this point anyway.

Thursday, August 02, 2001

after hours

here i am, still at work. it gets really quiet around the office after 5:00 or so...good because i can concentrate on my work without distraction, bad because i kind of miss the people. i'm waiting for my postprocessor to finish, crossing my fingers that it will run to completion without producing the segmentation fault i was getting earlier.

hmm, thunder. glance out the window. yep, it's a bit too dark for 6:15...normally the sun doesn't go down until at least 8. the center is on hurricane preparedness level 4 after hearing about tropical storm barry, which has a slight chance of heading our way. i don't know what level 4 is, but i don't think it's important.

good god this is a quick moving storm. suddenly it is pouring rain outside. i have an umbrella here in my office, so i'll be able to make it to the car without getting soaked...i hope. wow, it is really coming down. i can see my car in the empty parking lot from the window; perhaps it is getting washed clean! nice.

ha ha! the processor's almost done. no errors yet, keeping my fingers crossed. christina is still improving. pretty good day.

Wednesday, August 01, 2001

three days on the phone

you always think that bad things will never happen to anyone you know, until they do. i hesitate to write about the current event in my life here in such a public forum, but i really haven't thought about much lately except this.

my friend was in a car accident sunday as she was driving cross country and for the past three days, when i'm not on the phone getting an update on her condition, i'm sending her an email or searching the internet for information on the injury and treatment. she fractured three vertebrae in her neck and underwent surgery to stabilize her spinal column. miraculously, she has been able to lift her arms, move her legs slightly, and has sensation everywhere.

i spent the first 24 hours in a daze and hardly slept at all, but i've now gotten over the initial shock. she is on my mind constantly, and i am continuously thinking of her strengh and spirit and optimism and thanking god she has the qualities that will help her adapt to whatever the future holds.

i am so anxious to see her, and each day i wait for the go-ahead to buy my plane ticket. two friends are already there but are leaving friday and saturday, and i was holding off on visiting until the weekend, so that someone would always be there. today news came that she may be moving to a rehab clinic as soon as two to three days from now, so it looks like i may not be going to the hospital in utah, but instead to the rehab clinic, possibly in kentucky. i don't care where i have to go, i just want to see her soon, just to be there with her and talk to her and help her get started with the recovery process.

i know, i don't think there's anything i can specifically do to help her physically, but i just want to be there so badly to support her, and help her family if they need anything. i am helpless here in houston, and i hate it. i will see her soon though, very soon, and that is the thought keeping me going. she is an amazing person, and i know she will survive this.