Blog of Summer 2003

While cleaning out my old website, I came accross my first blog:

5-20-03 I'm back in OK - the drive so far has been relatively uneventful and I'm really enjoying being w/Sara. Saturday I'll be on my way and am slated to make my arrival at Purdue on Sunday. WooHoo! ...after I get my 'puter re-set-up there, there will possibly be more updates. Of course, AFTER this summer, when I get a laptop, I won't need to wait that long :) [9/25/10 - Still waiting to get that laptop.]

5-22-03 Yesterday I went riding on Sara's horse...and fell off, landing myself in the emergency room. I didn't break anything, just lost consciousness for a couple minutes. I have a big scrape on my face - but all-in-all I/m doing pretty well. I don't have to leave here 'til Saturday, so that's good :)

5-28-03 Maybe I should just add a blog unit...anyway, I'm starting to get an idea of what I'm doing here. Mostly optics stuff for a biophysics application. I'm really enjoying the food variety here, and having people around to do stuff is kinda cool. Not much to say...I'm still waiting on a net connection in my dorm room, and this Mac lab is getting annoying :P Oh, but I'm using Mozilla, which is cool :)

6-10-03 Last weekend was fun. We went on a canoeing trip - I went with a girl who had never been canoeing before so I was in the back to steer. On the ride up both of us got Sweet Home Alabama stuck in our heads. We were the first in the water but we got stuck on rocks several times and turned in a circle at least twice. Part way through we ended up 4th out of 5. I decided we needed to catch up. We started rowing in unison and experimented with how many strokes to each side made the straightests path. It turns out two - that's alot of arm work but it works. We ended up catching up and beating everybody else. Sweet Home Alabama! doot-do-didda-do-da-do!

Later, we went over to someone's apartment to watch movies. My roomate had never seen Return of the Jedi so we watched that. On Friday I watched 8 Mile. Basically I think it was supposed to be the story of Eminem's life. I actually kind of liked it - although there was definitely an unecessary scene...still no internet in my room :P

6-13-03 Still stuck in this stupid Mac lab...but last night was a blast. We got our first paychecks. The girls on my dorm floor went out for dinner and then for ice cream - I had a turtle sundae, and boy did the sugar kick in. Somehow we got to talking about hampsterdance. I heard hapmsterdance ONCE on the radio about a year ago, and went crazy trying to figure out what it was. My little brother was the only one who had also heard it, I would always start trying to sing it but could never really remember it so I have sung several made-up versions. Anyway, they loved hampsterdance too. After ice cream a couple of the girls had to go back to the lab to check on something. There was a computer with speakers...we went to hampsterdance.com. All four of us were dancing to the music video and clips. Then (it was already past dark), we made our way accross campus to our dorm - skipping and singing hampsterdance the whole time! Dee-da-dee-da-dee-da-doe-doe, Dee-da-dee-dee-DOH!, Dee-da-dee-da...uh...this is where I always get lost....dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee....doe-da-da-da-DOH!

6-22-03 OK, a few days ago I FINALLY got net access in my room. YAY! Yesterday was fun, we went to a local event called "Taste of Tippecanoe." I ALMOST got to sing karaoke, but there were too many singers. DRAT! I was gonna sing "That Don't Impress Me Much" by Shania Twain. Oh well. Some other time. Right now I'm enjoying my old Falco CD, and last week I got a Kraftwerk CD. I love '80's!
Next week we have to give our presentations. I'm not too worried. I really should try to find a scanner and take a picture of my setup...and scan pics from the first weekend when I took down my hair and hung sorta upside down on a swing...it was at a llama farm of ALL places...well I'm getting back to my laundry now, and a j-script tutorial I found.

6-27-03 5 weeks! I'm halfway through! YAY! I think this is the closest I've ever come to "living for the weekend." As much fun as it is, it seems terribly inefficient to have to consider only a few days of the week to be really part of your life, and spending those days in a frantic attempt to make up for it doesn't seem wise. Not that I'm truly doing that, but it's the closest I've come and I don't feel the need to get any closer. Not that getting back to school is exactly having the week to yourself, but at least it'll be my senior year. FINALLY! But seriously, it's a good question to be able to answer, if I had the whole week at my disposal, what would I try to accomplish? I think the first week I had at my disposal I would just sleep. Maybe the first couple weeks. Then I might want to read or work on something educational but non-schoolish. Then...then I might really start doing something. Maybe I would just try to help other people accomplish something they planned.

6-29-03 This weekend was nice and kinda quiet. It was just my roomate and I. There is a nice set of shops called Von's. I think it originally started as a bookstore. Everything is so close together and unplanned, not quite cramped, but definitely cozy and quaint. The video rental place is theonly shop separated from the rest. There is also a music store (where I got Kraftwerk) which even sells sheet music and old vinyls. Anyway, one shop is almost entirely devoted to beads. We each made a necklace, then she made earrings and I made a bracelet. She is in an orchestra, so her jewelry was designed for orchestr clothes and was very fancy cobalt colored glass and copper. I just had fun using natural type stuff, and made a design centered around a clay goldfish pendant. We also ended up helping a 5-yr-old girl make a necklace, sharing some of our beads and buying her some others. Her mom took pictures of us and exhanged addresses so that we could get the pictures and write. We may watch Charlie's Angels II, but I haven't even seen one...ok just got back from seeing it. It's one of the more stupid, objectionable, plotless, unplausible creations I've ever seen, but I did love the music :D

7-04-03 Happy 4th of July y'all ;) I bought a cool retro dress for $4.50, I think I'm finally learning the JavaScript tricks I've needed to, I'm enjoying some old Petra and Maggie B., and I got a fresh case of Dr. Pepper last night. I'm a HAPPY girl!

7-14-03 I bought my little brother's birthday present today, just booked my hotel room for the return trip, and I got my car running again last weekend. Oh yeah, yesterday I spent all day hiking. I'm sore. Less than 3 weeks...

7-20-03 2 weeks... but who's counting?

You know, despite being home schooled in the family of an electrical engineer, I never really played around with electronics when I was a kid. Somwhere in the back of my mind I guess I thought that being a physics major would automatically make me technologically capable in a broad sense. So far I've had a total of one lab where we used circuits, but there were 3 people in my lab group and I ended up getting a secretarial role of some kind. Once I managed to get together some electronics stuff and make an electromagnet. I have a DMM of my own (birthday present?), but I've mostly only used it to check batteries. I've bought a few beginner's guides to electronics, but they either end up not really being for beginners, or else being for 3-yr-olds, or else not making any sense at all (i.e. I follow the instructions and don't get the results I'm supposed to), or else being all theory (which I quickly forget) and no practice. I finally bought a kit on e-bay, but upon arrival found that it was missing the manual. However, there is a site with some of the project instructions scanned. I used one of those (spooky movie noises) today and it worked. Still, although it was hands on, it's kinda like paint by number. Everything is fixed in the set-up, and numbered. All you do is follow a wiring number sequence. Maybe if I had the real manual it would have explained better. I know that I've even learned about many of these components in theory. But do I remember? (no) Well, at least everything is labeled. Although it will take lots of extra time and effort, I suppose I could go back and research the parts individually, then look at the thing as a whole again and see if my prior circuits knowledge come back to me.

Next year I will be taking E&M I & II, and Instrumentation Labs I & II. MAYBE that will help a little. Also, I do have some Nuts & Volts magazines that my Dad gave me. I finally started reading one. It's old and way above my head but I wouldn't say I'm learning nothing. Basically, from what I've read, I think that when I feel ready I might try my hand at microcontrollers. [9/25/10 - I never got around to trying microcontrollers :(]

I know that physics is definitely more abstract than engineering, and to an extent I liked and wanted that. But, maybe I'm beginning to rethink. NOT that I'm switching majors. I spent much less time in school than most people to begin with. I learned to read late. I was "bad" at math. Even after I got "good" at it, I didn't do any for about three years. Then, I skipped a year of school and became a National Merit Scholar. Now, I think that much of that is do the fact that the NMS title doesn't reflect any real competence. But, what I have learned in life has been primarily self-taught, and I don't intend to let that change. If a degree is necessary, ok. But I'll "never let my schooling interfere with my education." (Mark Twain)

7-22-03 OK, my 1990 Honda got me all the way to Indiana from Colorado. I had to have it fixed earlier in the summer, but the Honda place assured me it was just a dead battery. I drove it home, and everything seemed fine. Last night some friends and I decided to go to the grocery store. I was the one with a car. On the way back, the thing died at at red light. To many things were still on for it to be dead, but it wouldn't restart. Luckily, this was right in front of a fire station, so we got help despite the late hour. I had it towed back to the same Honda place, and now I'm getting new ignition coils which were located deep in the mechnical underbelly. Therefore, the repair isn't trivial - but still, it could be worse. I FINALLY got my travel reimburment check yesterday afternoon, and due to the way I traveled and the way things are calculated, I ended up coming out squarely ahead. So, when you take into account the repair, it evens out.

Yesterday I also ended up debating one of the girls in my program, a Hindu. I don't think I convinced her of anything, but I'm just surprised at myself for saying anything at all. We were talking about Harry Potter, which she loves and I have never seen/read. We started talking about magic/spiritualism which of course led to my talking about Christianity. I REALLY prefer e-debating. Less emotional involvement, more time to think, a better format that prevents interrupting and sidetracking. In person... there are so many problems. Still, it's the way that most people debate, and I haven't debted online very much for quite some time. I think that might be the first time I've ever had a serious debate in person. Like I said, I don't think I convinced her of anything, and all of the problems of real-time debates were there, but I'm surprised I had the guts and I'm glad I did it. And although I don't think I CONVINCED her of anything, I think that I really surprised her and made her recognize some things she hadn't considered before.

Tomorrow we are taking a trip to the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. I guess I'm glad. It'll be an all day thing. Anyway - cheerio (s...in my cereal bowl!)