meggers' megillah

Time to Move On

2006-01-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

Through a series of online annoyances and attempts to help a friend with her blog, I ended up with my very own website; therefore, I am moving my blog to www.meggersblog.com since I may as well get my money's worth out of the site I bought. Perhaps having paid money for it will even encourage me to write more often?

Bend me, Break me

2006-01-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

On my drive to work, I pass a large community church with a billboard that always has a weekly quote to ponder. This week, the sign says: “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken." I ran it through my head a couple of times and wondered what the author of this catchy phrase really meant by it.

I agree that flexibility in some details of life is a necessity. It is necessary that a person be flexible enough to make a new friend, start a new job, or move to a different city, these changes are normal parts of life that must be dealt with properly. Flexibility in solely worldly affairs is an essence of life.

However, I do not think this is what was meant when that church put that quote on their roadside sign. In Googling the quotation, I was brought to a sermon given in a community church in New Jersey that uses this quotation to lay into churches that believe in following a tradition. He laments that

because we care about God’s Word and about Jesus’ commandments, sometimes we write our own little set of standards to which people must conform. We end up judging everybody by those standards, even when those standards are based more on tradition than Bible.

The question I would like to ask this man is: how does he think the Bible even came about without tradition? I like the idea that Fr. Phil, pastor of the Denver Cathedral, provides to separate tradition with a capital “t” from tradition with an uppercase “T.” Yes, some tradition is just “our own little set of standards,” but some of it was set forth by Jesus himself, or his apostles. Just because a practice wasn’t written down in exactly the proper order of execution in the Bible does not mean it can be tossed aside as garbage.

Even if the flexible shall not be broken, they may be bent so badly out of shape that they no longer resemble their true forms. Perhaps it is be better to be broken than to be twisted out of recognition.

Gimme a break

2006-01-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

At work tonight, I had a brilliant idea for something to blog about. I think I get some of my best blogging ideas while at work. And usually, by the time I get home, I can’t remember my brilliant idea for the life of me. Well, I have a solution. Smokers get smoke breaks, bloggers should get blog breaks. Take five minutes to sit down at a computer, or even just scribble on a napkin, a skeletal outline of the blog you intend to write when you get off. Or, better yet, since the Starbucks next door to my work has wireless internet, just sit out back with my laptop and write and post to my heart’s content. I wonder what my boss would think…

The Back Cover

2005-12-31T20:00:00.000-07:00

It is the general habit of book publishers to put a brief summary of a book and some laudatory comments about it on its back cover. I received the book Beloved, by Toni Morrison, for Christmas. This morning, before picking it up to read, I actually read some of the text placed there on the back cover for any curious eyes. The laudatory quotes especially caught my eye:

“A masterwork…. Wonderful…. I can’t imagine American literature without it.”

“A triumph”

“Toni Morrison’s finest work…. It sets her apart and displays her prodigious talent.”

“Dazzling…. Magical…. An extraordinary work.”

“A masterpiece…. Magnificent…. Astounding…. Overpowering.”

Inside the front cover of the book, there are two more pages of these butchered quotations. In the five excerpted comments on the cover, two complete sentences remain. In none of those comments does one gain any insight into why the book is “a triumph,” or why Morrison’s writing style sets this apart as her “finest work.”

If you go on to read the brief summary of the book, you will have ruined the experience of reading the pages contained therein, because it immediately exposes facts that it should take the reader the first hundred pages to discern. Morrison frequently employs stream of consciousness styled changes of scene, challenging the reader to follow along closely to grasp the complete story. If one reads the paragraph on the back before the book, they will have ruined the powerfully mysterious atmosphere Morrison works to create in the first pages of her novel.

In comparison with the damage done to the reader’s perspective of the book by the summary paragraph, I suppose those decimated quotes are rather harmless. Maybe next time, I’ll just have to remember to leave the book facing front cover up.

New Year's Shopping

2005-12-30T20:44:00.000-07:00

This year, several of my Christmas gifts came in the form of cash or gift cards. Over the last couple of days I’ve gone out to spend these funds on what I see fit. I noticed that nearly all the stores I have entered have on display plastic containers used for storage in the home. There’s a display in the grocery store, at Target, in a catalogue I was shuffling through. It seems this year that retailers are suggesting to consumers that their New Year’s resolution should concern organizing their homes and lives. Do they all get together and plan this? I’ll admit that I got a bit of the cleaning bug yesterday, and today, as a result, I have a clean apartment, but thankfully I don’t have so much stuff that I need new plastic containers to store it all.

The secular theme of Christmas was “buy, Buy, BUY!” and the theme for New Year’s is “store, Store, STORE!” all that new stuff you received.

Huzzah for consumerism.

Finally Finished

2005-12-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

It’s taken me several (three, I think) months, but I finally finished the 750 page long Don Quijote. One more classic I can cross off my list, and let me tell you, it’s quite a list. When I first started the book, I kept wondering to myself how it really contained a story that could fill so many pages. You would think that if everyone knows a man is insane, there is no real point to following his journey. However, Cervantes did an excellent job of presenting this realistic, if insane, character to further educate men in the benefits of leading a moral life.

In the first several chapters, there is such a repetitive insistence on Quijote’s insanity; the reader is left wondering what interest this man can hold. But repeatedly, in later chapters, Quijote breaks from the mold of an insane man who thinks he’s a knight errant and makes some shockingly wise observations and commentaries. Cervantes builds these opposing personality traits repeatedly, nearly to the point of exhaustion, leading the reader to grasp the complex combination of influences acting upon all men.

In a startling flux of personal influence, at the end of the book, while on his death bed, Quijote repents of his actions as a mad man, realizing the foolishness in his belief that he was a knight errant. Cervantes emphasizes that although Quijote had erred throughout his life, forgiveness and sanity were an option, albeit a final option. The reader is left shocked by the final and abrupt change of heart in Quijote. In the blink of an eye, he understands that his actions of the past months were driven by madness, and he is impelled to repent. Through this, Cervantes suggests to his reader that no matter how wrong, forgiveness is possible for all.

Perhaps due to a true devotion to the Catholic Christian faith, or, alternatively, due to a fear of persecution by the Inquisition, Cervantes presents an imperfect man who, in his last moments repented of his sins, and was forgiven them. Throughout the book, Cervantes builds a case against the sanity of Quijote; however, the reader never doubts his good, Christian intentions. Cervantes uses Quijote to reach out to his reader to insist that a man in any walk of life can lead a good, Christian life. If a mad man can do it, anyone can.

Writing for Math Nerds

2005-12-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had to compulsion to put two commas after one word? The way I see it, commas in English are like parentheses in math. And ever since middle school, I’ve had math teachers pound the importance of beginning and ending parentheses in the proper place because it can completely alter the meaning of an expression if the parentheses are improperly placed. In reading and writing long sentences, the kind that contain four or five sections, all separated by commas, I often feel compelled to double comma to ensure ease of readability and correct placement of emphasis. Take for example this sentence from the first chapter of Don Quijote:

But Master Nicolás, the village barber, said no one could possibly compare with the Knight of Phoebus, but if anyone could it had to be Don Galaor, Amadís of Gaul’s brother, who could adapt himself to anybody and anything and wasn’t finicky, nor was he a crybaby, like his brother,, and as for courage wasn’t second to his brother or anyone.

You’ll notice I put a second comma in at the final comma of the sentence. I think it would make it faster and easier to comprehend complex sentences such as the example above. It would help the mind know when to pull out of one thought nested into the sentence up to the thought that was running directly before it. I think I might just try to work double commas into my writing, only when it would be grammatically proper though, of course.

Restlessness

2005-12-20T20:01:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it’s the wind outside, aggravating the wind chimes so they call out to me. Perhaps it’s the prospect of 5 days off from work that will seem like nothing come Monday. I feel like one of the crunchy brown leaves that survives the leaf blowers and street sweepers of fall to be blown every which way by the brisk winter wind that vibrates those chimes outside my living room window. I want to knit, I want to read, I want to write, I want to make dinner. I wander from chair to chair in the living room, from cupboard to cupboard to refrigerator in the kitchen. I want to accomplish everything, subsequently doing nothing. There is a hat to knit, gifts to wrap, a cat to pet, a stomach to feed, and I just don’t want to sit still long enough to do any one of the multitude of options that are presented to me.

Don't Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth

2005-12-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

The other day, one of the cashiers pulled me up to the register because a customer had a question she couldn't answer.

The customer flashed one of our gift certificates in front of me and asked if it was redeemable for cash.

I apologetically informed her that that was simply not possible, the card must be used to make purchases in one of our restaurants.

She insisted that because the gift card was given to her husband, who liked nothing about noodles, they had no use for it.

I tried to inform her that not everything we sell has noodles, even though our name is Noodles and Company. She waved away the menu I tried to use to support my case, and mumbled something about re-gifting the card to someone else.

Whatever happened to being thankful for gifts you receive? She and her husband could have at least tried our restaurant, and they wouldn't even have had to pay for it. And as far as I know, it is not common practice of any business to redeem gift cards for cash, it wholly defeats the purpose of selling them in the first place.

I'm sorry, Megan's brain isn't in right now, please leave a detailed message after the beep...

2005-12-16T22:07:00.000-07:00

I feel more like sticking my head under the sand than I do sticking my neck out and saying something intelligent. Truth be told, I don't think anything that I write right now will really be worth reading. So, although I promised I'd blog tonight, I think I'm leaving it at this for now.

Modern Illiteracy

2005-12-02T22:27:00.000-07:00

Who would create a society of illiterates and why? It all begins to sound like a conspiracy theory. But a conspiracy of whom, and against whom? Four hundred plus years ago, before the advent of the printing press, most men were illiterate; now, men can only read enough to comprehend the ads that flash before them on the television screen. Somehow, I think the medieval man was better off with his complete inability than modern man’s tainted partial ability.

All the studies Gatto cites, where the results do not properly add up to the stated conclusion, why were the conclusions fudged? Who was the influencing factor? Was it that the theorist wanted so badly for his hypothesis to be true that he wished his favored outcome into life? Or was he paid off by someone who felt threatened by a truly literate populous?

Growing up, I always saw the ads for the Hooked on Phonics system that ran after “Jeopardy!” I always thought they were some silly gimmicky device for gullible parents. Why is the better teaching method relegated to sell itself through infomercials? There is something wrong with a society that would pass over a teaching method that is beneficial to its members in preference of something proven to fail. The question remains: why?

Stop and Go

2005-11-29T18:27:00.000-07:00

For some reason, the person who designed the exit ramps along my local stretch of I-70 put the traffic light sensors under the crosswalks. Getting off work one night, I waited at the stop light for nearly five minutes wondering why the darn thing wouldn’t change. The second I inched forward onto the crosswalk the light began to change in my favor. Now if I remember my driver’s ed right, you’re supposed to stop before the crosswalk rather than in it in order to avoid killing pedestrians and such. And it’s not just on my exit either; the same thing happened to me a couple of exits away from the one I take on my way home from work. There’s some quality civil engineering for you.

Finding Faith

2005-11-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

Chris,
I decided my response to your question concerning my entry to the Catholic Church warranted a post of its own.

Where to start in answering your question?

Well, about 2 years ago, my friend Katy and I were having a discussion about something, I can't really remember what at this point, but she made the argument of the unmovable mover, and I really had nothing to counter it. Truth be told, I had never truly considered how this world or any of us in to came to exist before then. From then on I began trying to form what I believed, realizing that I had never truly given such an important topic any thought before.

It was easy for me to determine that I know that there is a God who created our universe. The way He planned it out chemically, physically, and mathematically is amazing, not to mention the splendor and beauty of nature. I knew there was a universal set of morals that apply to all people regardless of their culture, as is well expressed by C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man. And if God is the God of the Bible, then Jesus is his Son, and the Catholic Church is the only true Christian Church because it has its roots in Christ’s own disciples. Although the Church may not be perfect because it is a human institution, it has its roots in belief in the truth.

The only problem in my logic was the seeming jump that needed to be made between “I know there is a God” and “Catholicism is the one true religion.” I had to take a leap of faith, reading a lot about the Church, believing the universality of the Church to be a sign of the rightness of Catholicism.

So, here I am, a candidate until Easter. If I may ask, why did you join the Church?

Quarterlife Crisis

2005-11-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

The quarterlife crisis is the new buzz phrase to describe the anxiety many 20-somethings feel concerning their careers and their relationships. I suppose I count as a 20-something now that I am out of college and into the “real world.” I also feel some degree of anxiety concerning where I should be going with my life, but I feel I have some bit of direction many of my peers do not.

In the article I read concerning the subject, the author cautions against getting caught up in the “trappings” of a new job: the high pay, societal prestige, and good impressions upon parents and friends. I have already thrown all of these to the wind, taking a job in an industry not at all related to my major, making far less money than I could make with my degree, and constantly trying to convince my parents that it’s something that makes me happy. I realize that money is not at all important. Yes, making enough to support yourself is essential, but I really don’t see how having twice my current income would make me a better or a happier person. Money cannot buy happiness, contrary to the urgings of all American marketing teams.

I realize that my current job will not last my entire lifetime, and I have no idea where I will go next. Yes, that does cause me some anxiety, but for now, I like my job, I can live off of how much money I make, so I see no reason to fret. At times, I feel like I’m going through a very temporary time in my life, largely because I’m waiting to finish RCIA. I would like to do some sort of work that allows me to further the Church; however, I also feel that I should finish RCIA first. So, I wait for Easter.

I believe that the quarterlife crisis is caused in part by the continued secularization of society. 20-somethings are “questioning [themselves] and [their] place in this world more than ever.” If these 20-somethings accepted that their ultimate place is not in this world, perhaps they would not suffer from such anxiety, and perhaps they would not have such difficulty determining how to live their lives.

I struggle with some of the same things that many of my peers do, but I have also conquered some of the anxieties that still plague many. I believe finding a solid moral footing helped immensely. If this were the norm, I don’t think the quarterlife crisis would exist.

Shifting Perspective

2005-11-17T19:54:00.000-07:00

The copy of Don Quijote that I am reading is one that I borrowed from the local public library. Unfortunately, this book has been defaced by previous readers who felt at liberty to underline and comment in the margins at will as if it were their own book. In a way, this highlighting of random passages has led me to a different reading of the book. Contiguously, I find myself following the plot and the thoughts of past readers. I wonder if all the underlining was done by one library patron or many, with my guess at this point leaning toward many. I tend to re-read the underlined sentences, wondering what importance they held to the former reader, and wondering if they hold any importance to me. I read the marginal writing, sometimes disagreeing with the note, other times thinking I should write my response to their question in the margin. I guess I’m making the best lemonade that I can out of the lemons given to me in this book.

On Free Will

2005-11-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

Have you ever had a line from a book jump out and snag your eye and your mind, without your fully knowing why? I got that with the following quotation:

“I know quite well there are no spells or charms in the world which can make a person do anything against his will, even if simple-minded folk believe there are, for we enjoy freedom of the will, and no herbs or enchantments can take it away from us. What silly women and lying rogues accomplish, with their potions and poisons, is to drive men crazy, which leads people to think they have the power of forcing others to fall madly in love – although, as I say, it’s impossible to enslave our free will” – Don Quijote

Don Quijote is proof that a mad man can contain boundless wisdom.

Determinist philosophers would like to say that there is no such thing as free will. Because they can prove that cause and effect is present in our universe, they say there can be no free will. But this is not really what caught me about the passage.

My immediate thought was that I agree that it is impossible to enslave our free will; however, modern day sorcerers and sorceresses, largely working in marketing these days, work by changing our desires and moral boundaries rather than working on defeating our free will. Certainly, they say, you are free to choose, but just remember how much *better* your life will be with that new big screen TV, that big house, and that fast car. So, really, nothing has changed. Quijote says that the witches of his time simply drive men crazy then lead their decision making. The amount of advertising and propagandizing man is subject to in the 21st century surely must drive him insane.

Input and Output

2005-11-10T21:41:00.000-07:00

At some point toward the end of the spring semester, when life was overly stressful, I came up with this idea, a very mathematical one I must admit, explaining why I was being anti-social and finding nothing to blog about. It seemed to me that people need to maintain equilibrium of input and output. We read a certain amount of words and we are then able to write a certain number of our own words. We hear someone speaking and after a while of listening, we are able to form a response. At the end of last semester, I didn’t want to talk, I didn’t want to write, I just wanted to sit and read. Now, granted, a good portion of that is probably because sitting and reading is largely what I do for recreation; however, I think part of it was also because I had done so much writing and so many project presentations that my brain just wanted to stop outputting and do some good quality inputting for a while.

I wonder if I have just now filled my cup with input that is brimming over into output on my blog, which is finally getting paid some attention in this last week. I have been devouring books all summer, reading faster and enjoying more. I find myself really missing my literature class, with a professor who was dedicated and cared about the subject she taught. I miss the thought-provoking discussion of her class, in which I was challenged to think in ways I was not used to. I was, in a way, surprised to find that this diverse mental exercise was highly welcome. I wish my RCIA class was more engaging, and I hope that maybe over the summer or next fall I could take classes somewhere that would interest me. Not because I need to, but solely because I want to. I have considered book groups at the local libraries, but the books they read largely do not interest me, or my schedule does not work with theirs.

Christmas in July

2005-11-09T12:21:00.000-07:00

Growing up, I occasionally heard the term Christmas in July, never really understanding the point. Yes, July is almost half a year away from Christmas, so what?

I get it now.

In the minds of retailers, perfection in the consumer market will occur when Christmas decorations are put up in July and everyone starts fretting furiously over buying Christmas gifts in that hottest month of the year. This year, while driving home from work, I noticed that several shopping centers had their Christmas decorations up before Halloween. I always thought the convention was to decorate after Thanksgiving. Retailers are skipping two major holidays with their Christmas cheer, all because Christmas is the most profitable holiday of the three. It’s still not Thanksgiving yet, and almost all of the shopping centers I drive past while going to and from work have their lights, garlands, and wreaths proudly on display.

On Love in the Time of Cholera

2005-11-08T22:29:00.000-07:00

In the book Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez tells the tale of one Florentino Ariza who spends his life pining for the love of his adolescent years who abandoned their relationship as sweethearts to marry a different man. Throughout his life, while Ariza cannot let go of the attraction he holds on Fermina Daza, he sleeps with multiple women, sharing his excessive love with all. When her husband dies, he senses his chance at last, wooing her with comfort through her time of sorrow and mourning. In the last pages of the book, as Ariza and Daza are preparing to have sex with each other for the first time, Ariza lovingly tells Daza “I’ve remained a virgin for you.” The reader is left wondering if they grossly misunderstood the last one hundred and eighty pages or if he really said that. To add to the confusion, in the final scene of the book, Ariza asserts that “from the moment [he] was born … [he has] never said anything [he] did not mean.” Ariza’s certainty in himself, along with his statement of virginity, combine to explicate Marquez’ opinions on sex and love.

The reader can open the book to nearly any page in the middle of the novel to find proof that Ariza is not a virgin to sexual love, so what could he possibly have meant by calling himself a virgin? Marquez, a writer from the post modernistic 20^th century, uses an element of mystery that he leaves to the reader to discover and interpret. One could excuse Ariza of his statement by calling him a liar, but that doesn’t explain why he felt the need to lie. Why say he had saved himself for Daza? Ariza believed that he had remained a virgin for Daza. Although he was not a virgin to sexual love, he was a virgin to other sorts of love. Then the question becomes, in what sorts of love was Ariza a virgin? Christians say God is love, but Ariza lived anything but a Christian life, from what the reader knows of his upbringing, he was not raised in the Church, so this association with love is not present to him. Ariza wishes to say that he has not felt true affection for or devotion to anyone other than Daza during his lifetime.

The meaning and essence of love is something so multifaceted that it becomes nearly impossible to grasp or even define it as a whole. Marquez toys with love and its meanings in a post-modernistic world, taking the term virgin and twisting it to mean something different than expected.

Aren't I a little young...

2005-11-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

...to suffer from Alzheimers?

I'm pretty sure there was something in my head while I was at work that I was going to blog about when I got home.

I'm home now.

And my idea is gone.

Go figure.

NaNoWriMo

2005-11-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

It is officially National Novel Writing Month. Bloggers are encouraged to kick on their creative drive to pump out a 50,000 word novel in 30 short days. They have an official website where you can register and everything.

The disadvantage to bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders is that they have one inclusive section titled "Fiction and Literature." You go in looking for a good classic to read and you're stuck sifting through the newest and hippest novels to be found. With titles like Metro Girl, In Her Shoes: A Novel, and Goodnight Nobody: A Novel, all New York Times Bestsellers, a person seeking a decent book to read is accosted with these neon covered atrocities. And these atrocities most often outnumber and crowd out the few quality books on the shelf because people don't want to read real literature anymore. Why do you think they jumble together fiction and literature? So people buying the junk fiction can fool themselves into believing that they are reading real quality writing.

NaNoWriMo is simply encouraging the common man to write more crappy novels among which bookstores may bury the quality writing. The writers of today who are going to put out work good enough to be called literature are not going to be called out with NaNoWriMo. Perhaps if the creators of National Novel Writing Month had named it something else, National Creative Writing Month, for example, I wouldn't be so bothered. Anyone and everyone may write creatively; however, calling that writing a novel suggests that it has the potential to be published and sold to consumers nationwide.

Holes and the Cat

2005-10-03T18:55:00.000-06:00

I think there are some gaps around the frame of my bedroom window and its screen, because every day that I'm here in the afternoon, there are at least half a dozen flies on my window sill. Now all of this is providing quite a bit of amusement for my cat; however, the presence of a wasp on my pillow yesterday is not quite so amusing.

The nice thing about the flies, if there is a nice thing about the situation, is that my cat will eat them, so I don't have to worry about them flying around my room and the apartment annoying me and my housemate. The problem with the wasp is that Gwen wouldn't eat it. Now I understand where she was coming from and all, I wouldn't want to eat a creature with a stinger, but unfortunately, her refusal of the free meal meant I had to kill it myself. I don't do well with the killing of bugs. Especially bugs that bite or sting.

A couple of weeks ago, a customer complained about the large number of flies residing in our restaurant. Maybe I should bring Gwen to work. It'd be a great workout for her, and help with customer relations. I wonder what the people at the health department would have to say about that one.

When exactly does fly and wasp season end?

Future Career?

2005-09-26T18:32:00.000-06:00

I don't know how many times, during a boring afternoon of cleaning at work, I've thrown my hands up in frustration wondering "Who designed this?!" From Metro racks, with their seemingly pointless intricately woven stainless steel, to the hood vents over the pasta cooker, with its ingenious gaps to catch the starch where you can't get at it to remove, to the grill, with hinges placed perfectly to catch any spare speck of grease in a space it would take a contortionist to get to.

On my first day at my new store, I was amazed at how very disgusting their grill was. The plates where we cook the meat looked just fine, it was just all the other surfaces that were hideous, the hinges in the back were especially awful. So last week, I finally took on the laborious task of cleaning the grill hinges. At Noodles, we have two grills, each with two sides to cook meats. It took me a full three hour afternoon to get just one of the grills' hinges clean. I still have the other one to tidy up, but I'm giving myself a week or two to build up to it.

The answer to the question "Who designed this?" is likely always "Some damn engineer who has never worked in a restaurant." So what would happen if the manufacturers of restaurant equipment hired some informed engineers who had done their time in the back of a restaurant? Well, the frustration level of restaurant managers nationwide would drop dramatically as the skin worn off their hands from cleaning with caustic chemicals and steel wool grows back, their labor numbers improve with less time spent cleaning poorly designed equipment, and they can spend more time in the front of the house entertaining the ever-needy customer.

Gwen the Techno-Kitty

2005-09-16T16:48:00.000-06:00

Not only is my cat a decent guard cat, she is also an Internet junkie. How in the world would I know this, you ask? Because everytime I sit down at the computer, there she is, sitting on my keyboard, scrolling down before I've finished reading a post, or changing the font size to unreadably small or impractically large.

If I had one of those Word Press blogs where I could create categories, I would definitely have one entitled "The 102 Personalities of Gwen." Fitting, don't you think?

Wilted

2005-09-16T16:44:00.000-06:00

The delicate little flower completed her tender little training session and wilted one week into the real thing. Go figure. Don't say I didn't warn you.

RCIA

2005-09-15T17:58:00.000-06:00

This fall I am involved with an RCIA class at the Denver Cathedral. I must say it is different from what I expected. I didn't realize that I had really expected anything until this week. I would love to have some sort of weekly reading assignment or topics to think on between classes. Call it "homework" if you like. The way it is organized is a weekly meeting where a priest or parishoner speaks for an hour on a select topic about the Catholic faith. But outside the one hour of the week, it asks nothing of me. Perhaps I'm trying to press intellectual desires on something that needs to remain more mainstream and less noetic to cater to a variety of candidates. Wouldn't it be nice if they offered a separate RCIA for the thinking soul (or something along those lines), complete with small weekly assignments and thoughtful discussion during class time?

Small Changes

2005-09-15T17:56:00.000-06:00

I finally changed the title and description of my blog, seeing as I graduated from senioritis in May. I tried to capture my feelings as a recovering student with the quotations I found.

What a Sap I am

2005-09-06T20:15:00.000-06:00

Why must my tear ducts become hyper active anytime anything changes? Today was my last day at the beloved Applewood Noodles and Company. It's not even that I'm going that far away. I'm headed up to the nearest north store in Arvada. But can you really blame me for building a bit of an emotional attachment over nearly three years in one place. And it's scary to go to a new place where in theory I know what they do, but in reality there are all sorts of nuances and differences that will probably throw me completely for a loop. It will be okay. How many different assistant managers did I see come into Applewood during my time? Okay, so there were only two, but neither change was really that catastrophic. It is different because this store doesn't have the rock strong GM to hold things together, but I said I wanted a challenge, I can't back out now. I will not pull a Jason and spend my first 2 months in the back reorganizing. I will not pull a Mike and flirt with every guy that works there.

I wonder if I'll actually be able to sleep tonight.

2005-08-13T21:02:00.000-06:00

The smart squirrel crosses the street on the power line.

Gwen the Attack Cat

2005-08-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

We've been having reasonable weather lately; it's cool enough for me to open my bedroom window to get some fresh air in from outside. Last night when I opened my window a moth flew into my bedroom. He must have gotten trapped between the window and the screen somehow. He really was a beautiful creature. I'd have mistaken him for a butterfly if it weren't for his furry body. So this moth flies into my room and immediately, Gwen is on the prowl. If watching her play with fake stuffed mice is interesting, watching her chase a real live creature is engrossing. She chased him all around the condo before he landed on a wall far out of her reach. She sat and stared at that spot of wall until I went to bed. Shortly after I laid down I heard a crunching noise that I assume was Gwen catching her midnight snack.

I have nothing to fear from the insect kingdom as long as I have Gwen around.

Right On!

2005-07-26T20:30:00.000-06:00

Sometimes a new and nifty phrase will catch the masses by storm. Typically this happens in a high school or college environment, but sometimes it can afflict a work place. My favorite little flower's phrase in response to everything under the sun is "right on." And now she has the boss saying it too. Actually, I think she says it more than the flower anymore.

Right on, man!

Did you know...

2005-07-25T21:22:00.000-06:00

... that drive thru ATMs are designed so you don't have to get out of your car when you use them?

... that when you're stopped at a red light, if you plan on turning right you may do so while the light is red as long as no one is coming?

I was stuck in an ATM line then in traffic behind a man who apparently is unaware of these simple, common knowledge facts.

I love stupid people.

Delicate Little Flower

2005-07-23T00:59:00.000-06:00

We must not hurt the delicate little flower that has been recruited to become a salaried manager. Because she is such a delicate little flower, we will give her extra time to learn to close, although we would get rather fussy if anyone else couldn’t pick it up in a week. No, no, we must give her at least three, heaven forbid she feels inadequate or incapable. And she definitely can’t get the store open on her own by now; we must make sure a (real) salaried manager is there half an hour before open to hold her hand and tell her she did a wonderful job opening the store. Wherever she becomes the assistant manager, she’d better hope the general manager has the heart of a social worker to care for her delicate little flower.

I have been told to be more patient with the delicate little flower. As I would prefer to relate myself to a stubborn noxious weed (such as that pretty spiky purple thistle that the state of Colorado would prefer dead) than a delicate flower, most of my patience with the current trainee stems from the reassurance that in the long run she and I will not work in the same store.

I’d better not get promoted and have her as my assistant.

Possible Future Career?

2005-07-20T18:06:00.000-06:00

If I were an ice cream truck driver, I think the music would drive me nuts.

Water = Agua = H2O

2005-07-20T17:58:00.000-06:00

You have to wonder sometimes if we would not be better off in a world without so much scientific knowledge.

I overheard a customer yesterday explaining to a cashier how drinking too much water can flush the electrolytes out of your body, and since it's so hot out, this woman is exceedingly thirsty, but is concerned to drink too much for fear of tampering with her body's precious electrolyte count. She came in with her own Nalgene style water bottle and when I served her she also had two of our cups both filled with a liquid that was either water or lemonade (hard to tell which with the green cups and the condensation). With all that sitting in front of her just to wash down her lunch, maybe she does have something to worry about. But really, whatever happened to drinking when you're thirsty and stopping when your body tells you it's had enough? Perhaps in our society of scientific hype, even our bodies have lost the ability to correctly determine thirst.

Then, last night at work, a coworker was drinking some sort of health water. It appears the craze has reached everyone. I thought water was healthy on its own, provided of course that it's clear and doesn't have any strange floaties in it. It is, after all, nature's drink of choice. Apparently cold, clean water from the tap just doesn't cut it anymore, guess I'm behind the times.

2005-06-27T22:19:00.000-06:00

Every time my parents get their hands on the latest breakdown of average wages by profession, they are certain to send me a copy. The average electrical engineer in Colorado Springs makes $79,000 a year. The average restaurant manager, what I would like to be in a year or two, makes $39,500 a year. This year, I am making $26,000.

I wonder what my parents will write about me this year in our family Christmas letter. "Megan graduated from the Colorado School of Mines and is wasting her time STILL working as an assistant manager at Noodles."

I have wasted my parents money on that stupid school, I'm now "wasting" opportunities to get ahead in the engineering job market, I am a disappointment who is not living up to her full potential.

Maybe, to me, living up to my full potential does not mean having a cubicle to call my own and making $79,000 a year. Maybe I don't know what my full potential is, but I get this sense that right now engineering just isn't right for me. I don't have anything else to go on, so that's what I'm going with. I'm not saying that I'll be working in a restaurant for the rest of my life, I'm just saying that I don't feel I've reached the logical conclusion of my career at Noodles.

Is there something so wrong with that?

Meet Gwendolyn

2005-06-27T21:36:00.000-06:00

This is the aforementioned plastic bag eating wonder that I brought home with me 3 weeks ago. We're getting along swimmingly except for her clawing at my bed and chairs, refusal to use the scratching post, chewing plastic bags, and keeping me up all night. But isn't she cute anyways?

(Hey Paul, I'm talking about a creature from a different part of the animal kingdom!)

At Least She Doesn't Chase Lights?

2005-06-27T21:33:00.000-06:00

My cat eats plastic bags.

It makes absolutely no sense. They can't taste good. And she's not picky about the type of bag either. She's been gnawing on the bags I use in my bedroom trash can, she was munching at a King Soopers bag tonight, and just now I installed a new CD drive in my computer and she was chewing on the bag it came in.

I don't get it.

Lucky Pigeon!

2005-06-02T09:32:00.000-06:00

Today, we visited the Park Guell, another one of Gaudi´s playgrounds. We took a break to sit under the shade of a large tree and read, and observed a happy little pigeon couple. It was a nice quiet corner of the park, so there was hardly any people, and even fewer pigeons, only these two.

At some point, reading turned into pigeon watching, go figure, and we noticed the pigeons appeared to be kissing. Well, making out if the truth be told. And then, for once, the female was chasing the male around, running circles around him, marking her territory perhaps. Then the happy "little" (he wasn´t the most petite pigeon in the park) guy finally got what he and his bretheren across Barcelona have been trying so hard for these last few days.

Congrats little pigeons, you´re going to be parents! Happy nest building!

Otras Pajaros

2005-06-01T16:43:00.000-06:00

I have been told by my Spanish translator that the aforementioned phrase means "other birds."

Not only have my Spanish translator and I been watching pigeons, there's plenty of other birds with which we can pass our time. While waiting for a train in Paris, needing to kill twelve hours, we wandered the banks of the Seine river, watching wildlife. Okay, so in the middle of Paris it's probably not really "wild"life, but nonetheless, there are still some cute little ducks and pigeons.

The best part was the families of ducks. There were two families we watched, one with a mom and seven ducklings, the other with a mom and a dad and five ducklings. Watching the ducklings eat algae from the stone river walls was quite amusing, they were so cute. The father of the second family seemed to have some anger manangement issues, he kept running the other family off, and later picked a fight with another male duck. Do they have psychiatrists for ducks? "How do you feel?" *Angry Quack* "Ah, and why do you feel that way?" *Angrier Quack* "Oh, I see."

Then, there were the geese in the church square of the Barcelona Cathedral. They live there and someone gives them lettuce and spring greens to munch on. Perhaps that's what the second offering money goes to in that church. Apparently Spanish geese take siestas just like their human counterparts, because when we arrived at 2pm, they were all nodding off. The best part was that they were actually bobbing their heads like people when they are falling asleep in class. Hilarious! Unfortunately, all this napping meant that none of them were being cute and swimming. Oh well, geese need naps too I suppose.

The Mating Habits of European Pigeons

2005-06-01T16:36:00.000-06:00

My days on vacation have been productively spent. I have picked up considerable knowledge on the subject of my title. One of the highlights of any vacation is having the freedom of time to occasionally just sit around and watch the birds. As we have spent times in large cities, we have had much time to observe many a pigeon.

Maybe we've put too much time into this venture, but at some point we started to notice a pattern. One pigeon would fatten his neck by hunching his head down, he'd flare out his tail in a manner such that it dragged on the ground, and he'd commence to follow another pigeon around. At first we figured he was angry with the other pigeon and looking to start a fight. However, the more pigeon watching we did, the more we noticed this odd behavior. It seems it was happening all over the place.

We have made the educated guess that this bizarre fluffing and parading routine is the pigeon courtship ritual. Unfortunately for the male pigeons, we have yet to see one win the heart of a strapping young pigeon lass, but we still hope for all those lonely pigeons out there to one day find lasting companionship. If, of course, that's the sort of thing they're after. I'll admit that after all our observation, we still really don't know what goes on behind the scenes of pigeon romance. Perhaps we'll never know.

End of the Season

2005-05-19T20:52:00.000-06:00

Today was my last day of snowboarding for the season. A Basin closes on June 5th, and I won't have another day off while I'm in the country before then. It was a blast. Thanks to the strange hand dealt to Colorado by Mother Nature at the end of April and beginning of May, the ski area had plenty of snow, even if it is all slush by now. At nine in the morning when we arrived, the snow was already slightly slushy, which is such a nice reprieve from the spring skiing days when you have to deal with rock hard ice for the first two hours until the sun starts warming things up. By lunch time, we had opted out of jackets and sweatshirts, more comfortable in a tank top or t-shirt.

Being the brilliant, light skinned person that I am, I failed to put on sun block. By the end of the day, I was no longer light skinned. I was more of a reddish hue. Okay, so you can call me the Giant Tomato for the next few days. I not only have a goggle burn, but also a glove burn (with lines about two inches above my wrists from where my snowboarding gloves stop) and a wifebeater burn. It hurts! And I have no one to blame but myself. Darn.

At least it was a fun day of snowboarding.

Linux!

2005-05-19T20:48:00.000-06:00

My dentist is down in Colorado Springs where my parents live, so yesterday after the dentist I paid a visit to my dad, who had the day off of work. He gave me a copy of Linux Fedora to experiment with, so as soon as I got home, I installed the new OS on Issac (my beloved laptop). I'm hoping with Linux Issac will not only boot faster, but also play DVDs without being so darn jumpy. I think he does boot faster, and I even have Internet up and running on him, but I have no clue how to install programs that didn't come with the system. It's being grouchy with me about permissions and I have no clue how to fix it. My dad still hasn't written back to my email pleading for help, so for now I'm at a stand still. (Paul, Katy tells me you might be able to be of assistance?)

Once upon a time, there were no such things as dentists.

2005-05-19T20:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, I went to the dentist. I'm sure we all love the dentist's office, they always have such great news for us all. So apparently, my dentist got this new high tech gizmo that uses a laser to detect tooth decay. So with this new gadget, my dentist was able to detect six cavities he would never have found otherwise. Hooray! New technology is all fine and good unless it means I have to get six fillings instead of zero.

I could work for them if I went by Meg

2005-05-17T18:17:00.000-06:00

I think one of the prerequisites for becoming a repair man is having a name that is, or can be abbreviated to, four or fewer letters long.

At work, our pesky salad cooler is refusing to properly cool the salad. So, last Tuesday, Joe came in to work on it. He came back on Thursday when it still wasn't working. On Saturday, Les came when it still refused to work. Les came back with Bob on Monday with the part he needed, and today, Gary came in to try once again to fix the stubborn cooler. With the number of repair men we've had in our store in the last week and their seeming inability to fix the problem, I'm beginning to wonder if the number of letters in their names is indicative of their IQ level. Perhaps it's promising that today's repair man had one more letter in his name than all the rest?

*On a side note, this is that thing I wanted to blog about yesterday, but couldn't remember. When I looked at Gary's nametag tonight, I just knew!*

Missing: Train of Thought, If Found Please Return.

2005-05-16T23:45:00.000-06:00

Today, when I was at work, I made a mental note and said to myself "I'm going to blog about that tonight." Well, tonight has come, and I can't remember for the life of me what exactly I wanted to blog about while I was at work. So here's my attempt to jog my memory by actually sitting before the computer... I don't think it's working.

Carrying a notebook to write down quality ideas is a good idea, but somehow I get the feeling that the second I start carrying a notebook is going to be the same second I stop having random ideas I feel the need to write down. I could always write things on my hands, but then my hands will look all messy, and there may be thoughts and ideas I need to remember but don't need to share with everyone I work with and all our customers.

School is out FOREVER!

2005-05-11T21:48:00.000-06:00

I usually try to have something in my mind to write about prior to sitting down at the keyboard, but I just want to write and I don't really have anything special to say. I finished school today, now I just have to wait until Friday and hope and pray that my diploma is actually in the holder. I don't know why it wouldn't be, to the best of my knowledge, I have passing grades in everything, but I'm still wondering, just a little. Due to the rain today, the ceremony is being moved inside, which is a bit of a nuisance, seeing as it means only five of the planned 12 can come.

I find it disappointing that just as I begin to improve upon my writing skills, as is witnessed by my stellar final paper for American Literature, I have no more opportunities to write for classes. Not, of course, those silly engineering reports, but interesting, more complex literature papers that actually require some thought. I have promised myself to not just read more, but to write more as well.

One of the guys I go to school with is convinced that I'll give up my gig at Noodles within six months for an engineering job. Cathy is certain that I will be bored out of my mind very soon with just working there. I'm so glad to see everyone has made such happy predictions on my near future. As for Jeff, I credit his comment to a lack of knowledge of me and my displeasure with the corporate world. Really, who wouldn't have more fun with an adrenaline rush dinner than sitting at a computer in a cube with carpet on the walls? In response to Cathy, I plan to keep myself entertained with a pet cat, many books, and hopefully some church activities of some sort.

Alarm Clocks

2005-05-09T21:12:00.000-06:00

Today, I got to sleep in. It's amazing, I don't even remember the last time I got to do that. I would guess it was sometime over spring break, but it's hard to be sure.

So this morning, I woke up late. Woohoo! I slept all the way until 9:30, at which time I awoke due to the disturbing dream I was having. I dreampt that I had to get to work and quickly, and I just couldn't get there for just about every reason imaginable. I woke up reminding myself that I didn't have to work today, and Cathy hadn't just called me urgently needing a person to cover saute. Still couldn't fall asleep after that though.

Tomorrow I could sleep in also, but I don't think I'm going to. Having your heart thumping in your chest is just not a good way to start your day!

Chef in the making

2005-05-09T21:07:00.000-06:00

Tonight while eating dinner, I actually pulled out the cookbook that my parents gave me when I first got an apartment. The cookbook is put out by my dad's Sertoma group and has recipes submitted by members and their wives. This is the first time it has been cracked open since it was given to me. Now that school's practically out I plan to make good on my promise to learn to cook. Tonight I cooked chicken. Sure, it was pre-seasoned and all I had to do was cook it. But, nonetheless, I cooked chicken. And I'm not sick yet. Always a good sign.

Culture of College Stupidity

2005-05-05T21:44:00.000-06:00

Tonight is the Senior Bus trip. Seniors can pay $5 for a bus ride down to the 16th street mall to hit up all the clubs with their classmates for one last time. What a sad tradition for the school to uphold. And there's no way there is any purpose other than getting drunk involved in this trip. The bus leaves campus around 8 pm and gets back at the school around 2 am. There's not much shopping you can do at that time of night.

As I refuse to be part of the Culture of College Stupidity, I am not attending this final drunken blowout. This just re-emphasizes to me why I am such an outsider at my school. I prefer to have fun that I will rememeber and not be ashamed of the next morning. I think many college kids figure they only have four years to party so they may as well live it up. Why does that thought occur to so many? Is is because drinking is so taboo, so that once we get out of our parents' houses we have to booze it up to prove our independence? College should be four years of discovering who you are and what you believe. I know I'm in the minority, but I don't believe personality and personal beliefs can be found at the bottom of a beer bottle.

I can see the light

2005-05-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

The one at the end of the tunnel, that is.

I have completed classes at Mines. I have two finals, a paper, and a project still to complete. But already, I am beginning to feel that heavy burden of end of semester work easing off my back. I look forward to reclaiming my brain for personal use over the next couple of weeks: enjoying reading again and hopefully blogging more often.

So now, I figure I should really think up a new title for my blog, seeing as my senioritis will be cured with the diploma I'm recieving next Friday. Any creative ideas anyone? I can't think of anything, maybe something will come to me later.

Chainsaw Symphony

2005-04-18T07:59:00.000-06:00

This morning, I awoke to the lovely sounds of chainsaws alongside my alarm clock's usual beeping. My apartment complex has been doing some springtime maintenance, and one of the things they're maintaining is the trees. Apparently it's my lucky morning to hear the chords of the chainsaw symphony outside my window. It's a good thing I had to be up this early, I would have been exceedingly pissed had they done this while I was trying to sleep in. It's annoying enough having to eat my breakfast with all this racket in the background. Is there something so wrong with easing into one's day peacefully?

Wandering thoughts

2005-04-14T16:14:00.000-06:00

I'm supposed to be writing a paper on Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself." I have come to the library with a stack of books and my laptop. I probably shouldn't have brought the wireless internet card for the laptop.

A question has occured to me this last week in both my philosophy and literature courses, and I want an answer. Why is it that European culture advanced so much faster than the rest of the world cultures in terms of technology? So, I'm sitting here in the library browsing wikipedia articles on pre-history, hoping to find the tiny fissure that eventually spread so that now essentially one group of people and their culture rule the world.

So far I have found nothing to answer my question, and in the meantime my paper is not getting any longer. Maybe I should have chosen a different piece of literature on which to write, perhaps it would have held my attention better. Maybe I just need more time to let my brain wander so that when it comes time to work, I can actually accomplish something. I think it's time to leave the library, I obviously can't be productive here any longer.

One month and two days to graduation,

2005-04-11T13:08:00.000-06:00

seventeen days of class left after today, eight homework assignments to complete, four papers to write, four finals to pass, two labs to do, and one senior design project to complete. Not that I'm counting. It really doesn't even seem too hard when listed that way.

SUNday comes a day late

2005-04-11T12:53:00.000-06:00

It is beautiful today. Bright sunshine reflected on the gleaming white snow making everything blindingly bright, streams of slush running past every curb so that walking to class is an exercise in keeping your socks dry, water on the roads steaming with the combination of cold air and warm, bright sun. I love Colorado.

Blizzard!

2005-04-10T20:34:00.000-06:00

It's April in Colorado; the daffodils are in bloom, the trees are budding, the grass is beginning to turn green... and all Mother Nature's wonderful signs of spring are covered in eight to twelve inches of snow. The great news is that I got to leave work six hours early because all our customers were too snowed in at home to come buy noodles. Hooray for unexpected free time!

On Free Will

2005-04-08T09:31:00.000-06:00

Of any of my decisions I could think that maybe it had to happen, but I didn’t know it had to happen the way it did beforehand. So perhaps God knows what decisions we will make ahead of time, but we most definitely do not. We make the decision from our tiny little frame of the present wondering what is right, appropriate, and just, trying to make the best decision for the situation while God already knows what we will do. If we are to suppose God is omnipotent, then we must assume He knows of the inner struggle taking place over the issue. Does His whisper in our ear determine what we do, or do we decide ourselves? In many cases, there is no way God would suggest a person do what he or she does, so it cannot always be that He tells us to do what is right and that we automatically follow. Does He whisper suggestions to us in any or every personal debate? Is that what makes a saint? The person who discerns best the voice of God in his ear and then always follows this voice truly?

Looking Ahead

2005-03-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

I blog more when my brain is being too active to do homework.

I think I am going to go through with RCIA in the fall. I understand that I cannot truly know anything for certain in this life and need to choose a path. Catholicism seems a likely truthful path that I may follow. If this changes for me before next Easter, then I can always back out, but I'd like to follow through with the commitment. I'm tired of lacking opinion, following the middle, and wussing out before I really get anywhere or accomplish anything.

I still have some doubts, and I think many of those doubts deal more with people's opinions of me than with my belief in what is the Truth. This is one of those personality flaws that I really need to overcome. I'm getting better, I think, but I certainly still need some work.

Almost There

2005-03-27T19:14:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow it's back to school. I don't wanna!!!

Everyone keeps reminding me how close I am, but I keep reminding myself how this is the always the hardest part of the school year, and I'm expecting it to be even worse this year since I get to graduate this time. Every year after spring break I find it increasingly difficult to put my nose to the grindstone and crack the books to do the work required of me. I have several classes that demand I keep my brain on and conscious to school and all I want to do is read a book of my choosing and hang out with my friends.

I am working on making a new friend, went bowling with a guy from one of my classes yesterday night. Bowling is always fun, but there must have been more smokers there this time than last because I was hacking up a lung worse than usual afterwards. I was nervous before hand because I really hate social situations with people I'm not used to hanging around, but I'm trying to listen to all those people who keep telling me having lots of friends is good for me.

For Easter, I spent the day with my best friend and her family. She and I went to Mass in the morning at Holy Ghost. What a great little church that is. Then we stuffed ourselves on delicious lamb prepared by her mom. Finished off a great relaxing day by trying (unsuccessfully) to fly kites in the park.

What a Tease

2005-03-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

Spring break, that is.

You go into it excited for a week of relaxation, only to realize that if you relax for a whole week, you will be horribly, horribly behind. Thanks to all my professors, I have plenty of work due next week and every other week after that until the end of the semester. Sure, I'll get to go snowboarding twice this week and will have spare time to get a little ahead on my homework, but I would prefer not having to do homework at all right now.

On top of all of that, my (already too short) trip to see my best friend in Minnesota was made even shorter by Mother Nature's cruel intervention. I got to know the end of Concourse A of the Denver International Airport quite well while I waited for the Minneapolis airport to get its act together and plow its runways well enough to get some planes in.

At least snowboarding yesterday was a blast. And amazingly, I'm not at all sore today. Either I wasn't trying hard enough or I'm getting better. Maybe both.

Why can't spring break be longer?

Belief

2005-03-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

"We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist, through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. Above all, let us dream no dreams, and tell no lies, but go our way, wherever it may lead, with our eyes open and our heads erect. If death ends all, we cannot meet death better." - James Fitzjames Stephen

When determining beliefs, there is no real way to see past the world that we currently inhabit; we can only guess based upon what has been given to us through the people around us, the books we have read, and our insight into these sources. I will never be able to reason myself into believing anything which is larger than this world. A leap of faith is necessary, one must take the risk that he will be wrong and pursue the path he sees as best. Standing still and freezing to death on that metaphorical mountain pass is a waste of a good life.

Since When is Life Fair?

2005-03-14T19:12:00.000-07:00

The phrase my parents repeated most often while I was growing up is "Life isn't fair." This would usually come up when I was begging and pleading for something new and expensive, or wondering why I wasn't allowed to do things other kids could do. It's one of those maxims I have found to be increasingly true the more I discover of life. Until now.

In my engineering class, the professor insists on giving us projects as though we were "real" engineers out in the "real world." For these projects, we are expected to work in a group of three to five people to come up with the solution to the "real" problem. So, seeing as the project is due on Wednesday, my group and I have buckled down to do some "real" engineering work. Knowing how most group work goes at my school, I arrive an hour early for our first meeting to think some things through before the others get there to distract me from thinking entirely. I had reached a good solid brick wall in my progress right around the time my group arrived and while they were there nothing was accomplished on the project.

We met again tonight to try to at least finish the math, leaving only the write up to be written. This meeting was really productive. The other girl in the team sat there watching me work apologizing for her lack of knowledge on the subject while the guy who was able to come sat and watched me work before finally deciding to start writing something for the report. Reaching my limit of frustration after 2 1/2 hours, we all went our separate ways. I went to Peaberrys and successfully finished the remaining calculations in an hour.

Why are people such as the girl in my group allowed to get this far in school? Either she's not smart enough to do the work, or she doesn't have the self confidence to assist the group, either way, she's wasting my time and causing me to do more work than I should have to do. Life is made less fair for me and more fair for her by her presence in my class and group. If only our feel-good society didn't believe that any Jane Doe should be able to recieve any four year degree she desires. I know for certain I would not want to live or work in a building for which she designed the electrical floorplan.

I also question the wisdom of a "group project," but that's the subject for another blog.

Ending the Indecision

2005-03-14T13:04:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it feels like everyone around me knows who they are and what they believe much better than I. As I try to determine what I believe and who I am, I worry that I am just following one of my friends' beliefs. I try to find answers for myself, but it gets difficult when there's always someone saying "Here's what I believe, don't you think this sounds right?" I don't even think shutting myself up alone and trying to come to definitive answers is a good solution, because maybe I don't have the answer in me already. I can read books in favor of one idea and I can read just as many books in favor of another idea and both can make good points, but what am I to model my life after?

Maybe this is one of the final stages of growing up? I am finally determining my own belief system and ending my dependence on others' opinions. I still worry about what other people will think of me. Shouldn't my only concern be what I think of myself and what God thinks of me?

Winds of Change

2005-03-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

It's almost spring, that dynamic time of year when the earth begins to come back to life for summer. I am realizing there are thing in my life that I need to rework and am frustrated that I cannot really make any changes until school ends. I have a mental list of things that I am waiting to do once May 13th, graduation day, rolls around; it's just a matter of finding the patience to wait another two months.

Patience builds character.

When in doubt, clean

2005-02-28T20:48:00.000-07:00

I finally bought a vacuum. I moved into my own apartment in August and I just now bought a vacuum. I'm sure some of you may be grossed out by my lack of floorly cleanliness, but if it doesn't look bad, it doesn't bother me. It finally started to bother me because I got a rug for Christmas which has been shedding red fuzzballs all over my living room. So I broke down, bought a vacuum, and cleaned the floor.

The vacuuming got me on a bit of cleaning kick. After all, cleaning is productive while not being homework. What more could you ask for? So I cleaned out the drawer in which I place important pieces of paper so I can actually open it without pushing down the mound of papers. And I got to use the shredder my paranoid mom bought for me.

So, my floor is clean, one of my desk drawers is organized, I put clean dishes away and put dirty ones in the dishwasher, made my bed, and cleaned off my futon.

Man I feel productive... nevermind that pile of homework assignments awaiting me.

And then it's Monday... again...

2005-02-28T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wasn't it just Monday already? I'm back here again preparing to go to class for another week. I swear I just did this. Maybe I should be happy the weeks are going quickly, that means I will be at the end of them sooner. Maybe it's just that looking back makes the time pass much more quickly than looking forward. Something to do with that saying "hindsight's 20/20." Maybe the saying should be "hindsight's 20/20 and playing in fast forward."

My finals schedule has been posted. I have an exam on Saturday, which I haven't suffered from since freshman year, I'm not looking forward to that. Aside from the Saturday exam, they are spread in such a manner as to completely mess with my work schedule. There is no way I can take my exams without some serious damage to my schedule, what a pain.

The High Cost of Snowboarding

2005-02-26T08:38:00.000-07:00

And I'm not talking about the monetary cost. I have written a to do list of things that must be done before Thursday before I can even consider going snowboarding. The encouraging thing is that the list is not too long or threatening. Of course, that's how most lists seem before you actually take a deep breath and dive in. But now I have something to concentrate on when I get home from work tonight.

I apologize for being so lax about blogging, and it's not that I haven't tried. Everytime I sit down in front of my computer to write, I suffer from blogger's block. I just sit here with my fingers poised over the keyboard and a blank white screen in front of me with my brain as devoid of blog topics as my screen is of color.

And now I must depart for work. A long day of work, hope we're busy!

The Procrastinator Catches Up

2005-02-17T22:12:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I feel really on top of things, I'm caught up if not ahead on homework for all my classes, I keep wondering what I'm forgetting and when my little world is going to come crashing down on me. Maybe I should stop being so darn pessimistic and just enjoy being on top of the mountain of things to do before the next avalanche hits.

My Computer is Home and Healthy Again!

2005-02-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

I went down to the Springs today to pick up my desktop computer with a brand new, functional motherboard. *Three more BIG cheers for my dad!* I am now treating my computer to new music from the new CDs that I bought this week plus some other CDs that I never got around to importing.

Homepage

2005-02-13T21:48:00.000-07:00

Until recently, the homepage on my browser was set to the standard Netscape Home website which I always hurriedly navigated away from in favor of a website more fitting to my personal tastes. However, when my local Village Idiot stopped by my apartment recently, my homepage was changed to the Idiot's blog.

It's nice that I can check in on the life of this friend everytime I open Netscape but it proves to be powerfully distracting. I get online with the intention of checking my email for updates on the project that's due tomorrow and instead I end up reading the latest blogs, commenting on these, checking the links to other blogs, writing on my own blog, everything but the productive thing I intended to do.

So, here I sit with plenty of productive things needing my attention while I choose instead to fill up my corner of cyberspace.

*On a side note, for anyone who has a pension for follow up stories: Rumor has it my dad has fixed my desktop computer. Three cheers for my dad!*

Time Well Spent

2005-02-12T08:03:00.000-07:00

Last night after work, I cleaned my apartment. It doesn't really sound like anything to even mention, but it is such a nice feeling to be able to sit on my futon without moving piles of stuff and to open and shut my bedroom window without having to step over and around a pile of clothes. The bad news is now I have to do laundry. I hate doing laundry. At least with cleaning you can see and appreciate the result when you're done. With laundry, sure, your clothes are clean and wearable again and you can stop wearing the uncomfortable socks you only wear when all the others are dirty, but it all just seems like such a hassle. Not only do you have to get the clothes clean, but then you have to hang or fold them and put them away.

Oh well, no use whining about something that's inevitably unavoidable, right?

The Evil Empire sells Bumper Stickers

2005-02-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

First, let me clarify. The evil empire which I am referring to in this particular blog is Microsoft (not Walmart, Starbucks, or McDonalds).

At some point, Hot Topic switched from selling cool, sarcastic bumper stickers to selling gay pride and rock band stickers. Disappointed at this discovery, I began my Internet search for cool bumper stickers, after all, you can find just about anything online, right? So I found this website, BumperArt, which sells a wide variety of witty bumper stickers which are on par with what Hot Topic used to offer. Last night, I discovered that this same website allows you to custom build your own bumper sticker. I was excited, I could finally have the stickers I want.

So I go to the design page and try to change the colors and font to my desired settings, but it refuses to change from black times new roman font on a white background. Unfortunately, my favorite bumper sticker selling website in incompatible with Netscape. Grr. I installed Mozilla hoping for better luck there and finding the same results I got with Netscape. Desperately wanting the bumper stickers I had gotten my hopes up for, I sucked it up and installed Internet Explorer. I ordered my stickers and am now in the process of uninstalling the evil program which is just waiting for an opportunity to litter my computer with its spyware and popup advertisements.

Computers are Just Wonderful, Aren't They?

2005-02-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

For the last month or two, my desktop computer has been rather reluctant to start up, but the problem has been intermittant, so I've just ignored it for a while. I asked my computer whiz dad what he thought could be the problem and he said it was most definetly the power supply flaking out. With this in mind, he and I headed down to CompUSA to purchase a new power supply for my computer. We returned to my apartment, replaced the power supply, and, lo and behold, it started! Happy to have my computer fixed, I went about my day as usual until the evening when I needed to use my computer. I press the power button, and nothing. It's back to its same old antics with the brand new power supply.

So, once again, I turn to my dad for some advice, and based on what he's told me and what it's doing, I think I have to buy a new motherboard. Why is it always the more expensive, more difficult thing to replace that breaks?

Until the chronicles of my busted desktop end, I am just thankful that I have an operational *crosses fingers* laptop to hold me over.

Polar Opposites Day

2005-01-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

From here forward until the end of the semester, Tuesday will be known as Polar Opposites day. For me, at least.

The day begins with a meeting with my senior design advisor. In this meeting, I must feign interest in a project which does not matter to me, pretend that I have been productive toward this project during the last week, and just kiss ass in general. Proof that I'm not good at BSing is held in the C I got in the first half of the Senior Design course last semester. That's the second C I've ever gotten, I'm not used to grades like that and, quite frankly, I'm still rather pissed.

After that glorious meeting, I have to work on the design project with my group of arrogant, irritating guys. They know it all, so I don't need to bring my brain to the meetings, right?

In the afternoon is my favorite class of the semester: American Literature. I had this professor last semester for 20th Century Literature and absolutely loved the class (aside from the weekend I spend writing the 10 page final paper, but that's my fault for making it so miserable). My literature professor has a PHd in Literature. How she ended up at Mines is a wonder to me, but believe me, I am extremely thankful.

She believes that even us engineering students have creative ideas. This is one of those concepts which is normally not discussed in the quiet, closed atmosphere of my school; it is a pleasure to hear it said from one of my professors.

After class, there is work. But there is always work, and it is neither good nor bad. It is inventory night, but that's really not so hard, just time consuming.

So, I wish you all a happy Polar Opposites Day, and hope the good part of your day outweighs the bad.

Sleeping Beauty and the Faulty Power Grid

2005-01-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

Possible title of the newest Disney film? Maybe.

This morning I awoke to the chirping of my phone at a text message, not the dreadful beeping emitted by my alarm clock. Glancing at my alarm clock, I notice that the numbers are blinking and that it's 3 in the morning. To start with, the room is far too bright for 3 am, and secondly, the numbers never blink unless there's been a power outage. So I got to start my day with that wonderful panicky feeling of "Oh shit, what time is it?!" My cell phone told me it was 9 am, just the time when my class started today. Oh well, at least it was only class I slept through and not work, and I ended up with an extra hour of free time this morning.

I was productive and everything. I did laundry, started reading a new book, worked on the scarf I'm knitting, and then was almost late to work because I was so absorbed in my own little world. Oops. So I got to enjoy that panicky feeling twice in one day.

Tomorrow will either bring a fun-filled day of snowboarding, or a fun-filled day of lounging around my apartment, I still haven't decided what I'm up for, but either way I will enjoy myself.

Cleaning Projects

2005-01-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

In the period of time between lunch and dinner, roughly from two to five in the afternoon, there is a lull in business at the restaurant where I work. Most of the time there is just enough business to keep us occupied. For these last three days, it has been uncommonly slow during the afternoon, so I have had the joy of cleaning. I've done everything from scrubbing stainless steel to plastering over holes in the wall and repainting. Quite frankly, I'm getting awfully sick of it.

Today, I will once again be working during the afternoon. I'm considering sneaking my chess board into the building and convincing a coworker that it would be a more productive use of our afternoon than cleaning, because if I really have to spend one more afternoon searching for cleaning projects, I'm going to scream. (Or kill someone, depending on how irritated I am)

I've heard of Native American rain dances and such, I need to teach myself a better business dance so the good spirits of Noodles might answer my request.

Politically Correct

2005-01-09T10:07:00.000-07:00

As most of you probably already know, I work in a restaurant whose main cuisine is noodles (that is, after all, the name of the restaurant). Before working there, I never realized all the different allergies people can have to food. Among the most common are peanuts, shellfish, and gluten. What is gluten, you ask. Gluten is a substance which is found in food derived from wheat products. All of our noodles, with the exception of rice noodles, contain gluten. So, when a person who is allergic to gluten orders food, they request rice noodles in their dish and we put a special alert on their order so the kitchen crew knows to cook it specially to avoid contamination with the gluten.

Now, to the real story. Yesterday, a customer requested to have rice noodles substitute the normal noodles in her dish. As we are trained to do, I asked her if this was due to an allergy. She hesitated, then reluctantly admitted that it was due to a "sensitivity" to wheat. It seems that someone is a bit sensitive about her sensitivity.

I never realized that having an allergy could be politically incorrect, but apparently this woman feels it is. Just a little more proof of the idiocy of the phenomenon of political correctness.

T-4 Days and Counting

2005-01-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

Until school starts, that is. Yesterday I kept running into people from school. While I was eating lunch at work, one of my fellow students came in to eat and we briefly caught up on the small talk I engage in with most of the people at my school. Then, eating a late night dinner at IHOP, I glimpsed one of my former professors. One of the ones who did a horrible job teaching the material. Needless to say, I ducked my head and avoided talking to that one. Apparently I need to stop eating in public places to avoid these dreadful reminders of what's to come.

If I just think about the first couple of weeks, it's not so bad. The shit doesn't really hit the fan until somewhere around the middle of the semester. That's it, I'll keep a narrow minded view on life only thinking a week or two ahead, and it won't be so bad, right?

Meanwhile, at work, Cathy's trying to figure out a way for me to have two days off during the school year. Nice though, but I doubt that it's going to happen. The closest we've got is having me work only two hours on Saturday, which could work out nicely, but it also means having to rush from class to work every day I'm in school. That sounds dreadfully unfun to me. No matter, it will all work out in the end.

Last week of Freedom

2005-01-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

In response to the Village Idiot, yes, I am almost undone. Will you be happy when I'm suffering with you in the miserable throes of the school year? School starts a week from today, and I am dreading it fully. It is my last semester, so the light at the end of the tunnel is gleaming nearby, but it is still four months and eight days away. (Not that I'm counting or anything)

Today I went through the process of book buying: go to school bookstore, write down ISBNs, go home, get online and go to Campus I bookfinder and find cheap books from Asia so I don't have to waste money at the school bookstore. I hope this semester's book purchasing goes more smoothly than last semester's; I had to wait two weeks into the school year to get the book which I had homework due out of every week, what a pain.

I realize I have not blogged since the beginning of Christmas break, and I apologize and assure you all that I have enjoyed the time during my hiatus from the blog. My return to the blog signifies that I have finally reached the state of relaxation in which my brain once again enjoys reading in my free time and writing doesn't sound like a torture imposed by overzealous college professors. Just in time for school to start again. Grr. Oh well, at least I get a week of stresslessness. I keep telling myself it will all be better in the summer.

Must survive until the summer.

I'm Done!! (until January)

2004-12-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, the fall semester is finally over. Miraculously, I made it through, and I feel like I probably got As and Bs in all my classes, but it's hard to tell, I should just not think about it until Tuesday at 10 am when final grades are posted.

I finally began Christmas shopping yesterday. I am definitely not done though. I really hate Christmas shopping, it's so hard to know what everyone wants. Especially parents. And you have to buy something for everyone all at once. At least birthdays are spread out over the year.

But hopefully once I'm done with the torturous project of Christmas shopping, I'll get some cool things from my family and friends, so my hard work shopping will be rewarded.

Tuesday Morning Blues

2004-12-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend was great, I talked to my best friend from high school who I haven't spoken to in at least a year and we're going to go snowboarding sometime over Christmas Break, which is going to be awesome. I got to go snowboarding twice, once with Alex and once with my dad, both very fun. Now I must put my nose back to the grindstone for the last week of my last fall semester at Mines.

Yesterday I went snowboarding with my dad which means today is essentially Monday. Now, finals week really begins. The paper that's due today is written, but I still have a group meeting to attend today for a project that was supposed to be done for the semester (what a pain) which I am really dreading. Tomorrow I have an easy test, then on Thursday I have a more difficult test and a report with a presentation attached. Only three more days... I can do this. I've gotten through the rest of the semester, it's less than a week left.

*Nevermind my personal pep talk, I gotta keep going somehow*

Look at those penguins fly!

2004-12-08T23:18:00.000-07:00

Yeti Sports, as much fun as you can possibly have with a Yeti and his friends, the penguins. I played one of these games a while ago, and rediscovered it today while "working on a group project" *wink wink* Thought I'd share the wealth of simple minded amusement.

Cheating the System

2004-12-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

So whenever I view The Village Idiot's blog at school, it appears in this really cool font. When I view the same post from home it's in the boring, standard Blogger font. Perplexed at the difference, and wanting cool fonts for my PC, I did a little source code viewing on the page like a true computer nerd, found out what font is used, and emailed it to myself from the school computer. I paid the technology fee as part of my tuition this semester, that means I'm entitled to some free fonts, right?

One of the worst things the 1960s left us

2004-12-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not talking about hippies, the sexual revolution, or rampant drug use, although those are far worse than my subject today. I'm talking about the cubicle. According to Wikipedia, the cubicle was initiated sometime in the 60s by either IBM or office designer Howard Miller. Whoever it was obviously never considered the consequences of his design.

I was talking to Cathy today about the hijinks of the people working in the Noodles corporate office (she's worried they'll be pissed because she is "stealing" credit for a good idea), and she told me about the problems her daughter is having working with cubicle people, I mean office people. They won't give her more work to do, but they won't let her go home. And, of course, she's not allowed to read at work, and surfing the Internet is frowned upon. What, is she supposed to stare productively at the wall all day? What a joke.

In editing my recent research paper, Katy made me take out a couple sentences which did nothing more than bash cubicle culture. She was probably right, they had no real place in that paper, and for that exact reason, I will vent here.

There is something quite bothersome about a society full of people who are so concerned about recieving as many brownie points as possible that nothing else matters, even if it means hoarding work while a perfectly capable employee sits and watches the paint peel.

I refuse to enter the pettiness of the cubicle culture when I graduate. I enjoy my job at a restaurant where I get to be alert and moving all day. There are plenty of people at my school who cannot begin to grasp what appeal a job in a restaurant could hold. I think that's their problem, not mine.

All I want for Christmas is...

2004-12-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

time to spend with my friends.
time to go snowboarding.
time to read the books I want to read.
time to stay up late and sleep in.
time to visit my parents.

...a longer Christmas vacation.

Dress Shoes

2004-12-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

The semester is finally beginning to wrap up. Yesterday I turned in the 10 page research paper I'd been agonizing over ever since Thanksgiving, and I gave my proposal presentation for Senior Design, which means I am done with that class until next semester. Thank goodness too, that class is way too much work for my liking.

The presentation I gave yesterday required my team and I to dress up and look professional. So, even though our client was wearing a nice comfortable polo, the guys in my group donned suits and ties and I pulled out the dress pants, collared shirt, and dress shoes. Instead of just wearing my normal dress shoes, I decided to wear some nice-looking shoes I hadn't worn in a couple of years, mix it up a little bit. I realized halfway to my first class why I hadn't worn the shoes in a couple of years. The shoes had worn so much on my right heel that the skin was broken and I was bleeding. Needless to say, after the torture of yesterday, those shoes are going to Goodwill and I'm sticking to my comfy dress shoes in the future.

Today, I turned in my last lab report for MEL (that's the Multidisciplinary Engineering Lab, for those of you luck enough to not know what that stands for), and took my final in that class. I think I aced the test, so hopefully I'll get a decent grade in the class. Now there's only one more class to stress about this week. Unfortunately, it's the homework for that class is making me feel miserably incapable, it's quite discouraging.

This week is all about getting past the final hurdle for each class. I've cleared 3, only one to go.

*I apologize for the bland, dry quality of this blog. My brain is overworked and does not have much energy to spare for creative blogging.*

Awkward titles

2004-12-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

First, I apologize for my lack of blogging lately, I have the week from hell and am trying to get all my final reports, papers, and projects done without losing too much sleep. Something has to suffer, and it just happens to be my blog.

Now that we have that out of the way...

When you're in elementary, middle, and high school, teachers titles are always Mr. Smith, or Miss Brown, or Mrs. Jones. It's simple, it's just the gender and age appropriate form of address. Then comes college, where all the professors are doctors, so you form the new habit of calling everyone Dr. Smith, Dr. Brown, and Dr. Jones. Then, along comes a professor who says he's flattered but feels he should inform you that he has not actually recieved his doctorate. So now, I can't call him Dr. Smith, adding Professor sounds awkward, and somehow Mr. Smith just doesn't sound right anymore after 3 years of Dr. This and Dr. That. This guy is at least 30 years my senior, so just calling him Bob is inappropriate as well. *I hate when professors tell me to just call them Mike*

What do I do? Avoid addressing him as often as possible.

Thanksgiving break

2004-11-24T09:25:00.000-07:00

The great thing about Thanksgiving is the three days away from school. Officially, it's two, but all my professors have told us not to bother attending today because they know no one will anyways. The upsetting thing about Thanksgiving is that once it's passed, it's December, when all the big final projects and papers are due. The one thing that's making me really nervous is the 10 page research paper for my Literature class. Having gone to an engineering school for four years, 10 pages on a piece of literature looks quite daunting, especially since I haven't started actually writing yet.

Aside from all the school work looming ahead of me, I know that this long weekend will just fly by. It's all planned already. Today, I work all day. Tomorrow, turkey with the folks. Friday, snowboarding followed by work. Saturday, snowboarding followed by a play. And Sunday, it's back to work as usual. So I have the feeling I will be coming out of this vacation in a greater need of rest than before.

But it's okay, because even though it will be December soon, once I get through with all the papers, projects, and final exams, I'm free for a whole month before putting my nose back to the grindstone for my last semester at Mines.

Driving: Therapy for under $50 per hour

2004-11-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I left my apartment with the simple mission to go to the music store to buy a new CD or two. The music store I choose to patronize happens to be a 20 minute drive from my apartment. Really going to buy the CDs was as much about the nice drive there as it was about the music.

So I got to Second Spin, my music store of choice, picked out two CDs, Gershwin and Handel if you care to know, paid, and got in the car planning to head home... eventually.

I used to go on drives quite often, I used to have more time to spend on things of that sort. Tonight I had some spare time to kill before bedtime, and I figured as long as I'm wasting time buying CDs, I may as well make a night out of it.

So I did a little random driving farther south and east than my daily travels take me with my classical music cranked up to full volume. I went through a strange detour which seemed in the middle of nowhere until I popped out on a major street, kinda strange. Even stranger was the airport traffic control tower by the side of the road in the middle of the detour and the parking garage next to it with the bottom level full, but no place for the owners of the cars to be.

Eventually, I ended up on I-70 headed west, finally going home. I got on the interstate just east of I-25, right before one of my favorite stretches of road. Call me weird, but driving certain roads is just more enjoyable than others. Tonight, I almost felt like I was in a car racing video game. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't speeding recklessly, the road just looked perfect; the lights at even intervals from each other, almost new pavement with still visible lines marking the lane boundaries, and the way the road curved, first right then left, in rhythmic succession.

Now, feeling calm and relaxed, I can go to bed in peace having enjoyed some quality time with Cheddar this evening.

It's Friday!

2004-11-12T14:03:00.000-07:00

Although, this week that doesn't mean as much as usual, because I have to work all day tomorrow. Having tests on days I'm not normally in school really messes with my schedule, which in turn really messes with my head.

And to add to the confusion, after assessing my homework status yesterday, I thought I had a fairly light weekend ahead of me, but this morning I woke up and realized that I had a report to write and a test to study for, rather disappointing.

Also on the agenda for next week is a meeting with the professor who gave me a low participation grade for not spending enough hours on his stupid class. He requested the meeting and I'm getting nervous about what he has to say.

All in all, I just want next week to be over and Thanksgiving to be here, those couple of days off will be nice... I might even get an extra day or two off at work... Snowboarding, here I come!!

Scholasticism in the Computer Age

2004-11-10T10:01:00.000-07:00

This week, I have the second of two midterm tests in my engineering class. In this class, we have weekly homework assignments which assist us in grasping the material, and learning to use the concepts we were taught in class that week. For all the homework assignments since the last test, it has been necessary to use a special computer program to do mathematical calculations and produce graphs which we read in order to answer the questions asked in these assignments. Once we read values off the graphs, we use our calculators to plug these values into large, rather ugly equations to obtain answers to the questions asked of us.

You may ask why all this dry exposition of one of my more boring classes. You must understand that thus far we have been trained to be entirely reliant upon technology, both of the handheld and desktop variety.

Enter this week's test. We have no computer. That is understandable and acceptable because the professors can provide us with the graphs that they produced using the necessary computer program, and we can work off those. We have no calculator. This is where things begin to get a little bit ridiculous. How in the world do they expect us to simplify these long, drawn out equations in our heads? Worst of all, we may be expected, the worst part is the "may be": should I really waste my time studying this extra material or not, to draw graphs that no one ever actually draws by hand, they let the computer do it for them.

My understanding of the purpose of this class is that it is to prepare us to use these computational tools in the "real world". In the real world, no one is going to take away our computer and calculator and expect us to come up with results. Why this torture now?

Road Work

2004-11-09T10:02:00.000-07:00

Perhaps I ask too much when I expect a little bit of common sense from the Roads Department of the City of Golden.

They have been working on a project on 19th avenue, right outside my school, since the beginning of last spring. They have installed concrete medians which, I assume, are supposed to encourge safer, slower speeds for traffic, I think they're just a hazard, making the road narrower than necessary, but that's beside the point of today's discussion. The design is only the beginning of the problem.

As I mentioned, they began construction last spring. Then they stopped in the beginning of the summer. And it sat there unfinished all summer. Fall rolls around and they finally decide it's time to complete this project, so they finish pouring concrete, paving, and filling the medians with dirt. So now they have these dirt filled medians, which will presumably hold some sort of landscaping at some point.

In a logical plan, since it's so close to winter, they'd just wait until next spring to plant whatever trees and shrubbery they have decided on. And since they've waited so long to do everything else, why not just wait a little longer? But no. They wait until after the first snow to plant the twigs of trees that will some day grow into a beautiful landscape, provided of course that they survive this first winter, which in itself is largely questionable. And when, of all times do they decide to plant these twigs? Rush hour this morning. Of course, because that's when they can cause the largest traffic jam! I'm surprised they didn't wait for some rush hour morning after it had snowed all night, maybe then they could even cause a few good accidents, but that probably takes too much foresight and planning.

But I suppose I am ignoring the greater economic good of planning this project in this manner. This way, when spring rolls around again, we can give more workers jobs replanting the twigs of trees that died over the winter. Of course, why didn't I realize that master plan in the first place!

High Expectations

2004-11-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Being a senior, I am required to take what is called a "capstone class", Senior Design. This is THE class that proves that I am capable to become an engineer in the real world, or something like that. Each month, we are required to submit a progress report detailing what we have done in the last month. On this report we say what we have accomplished as well as including a chart detailing how many hours you spend on the class. The professor for this class expects us to spend 3 times the amount of credit hours on the class each week. Senior Design is a 4 credit hour class, so he expects 12 hours a week from us. I think this is ridiculous. If I were to spend that much time on all my classes, I would be spending 51 hours a week on school. That is more than any reasonable full time job requires, and doesn't account for the fact that most students do either extracurricular activities, have a job, or both.

So, even though we accomplished everything we said we would last month and I explained that in the report, because my hours spent were way below his obscene expectation, I got a 70% on my progress report. What crap. The lesson I learned today is to BS hours to make this impractical professor happy.

Snowboarding!

2004-11-07T01:47:00.000-07:00

The problem with doing something for the first time in 7 months is something that you were once decent at has gotten rather rusty. Today, I pulled my snowboard out of the coat closet, dusted off my helmet, and woke up way too early, all to go snowboarding during the opening weekend at Copper Mountain.

I was psyched for the season to start back up, but once I got on the lift for the first ride up the mountain, I started to get nervous... What if I don't remember how to turn? What if I wipe out? What if I don't even remember how to get off the lift? Well, I got off the lift okay. And I was turning okay, and I didn't really wipe out, I just fell a few times. But it still wasn't as much fun as it was before the end of last season. It was frustrating to not be at the same level I was at when I left off last year.

I almost got my groove back halfway through the day, but then it ran away again. I'll catch up to it for good sooner or later.

Evil Professors

2004-11-03T13:26:00.000-07:00

This year, I have purchased a season pass for snowboarding that is good at two resorts: Winter Park and Copper Mountain. Winter Park doesn't open for another two weeks, but Copper is opening this weekend. I am super excited to go snowboarding with my friends, my best friend is even flying out from Minnesota to come with us. I even bought brownie mix so we can have yummy snacks on the slopes. In light of all the time I will be "wasting" on Saturday, I don't consider it wasting really, but I could be doing homework instead, I had all these great plans to get ahead before the weekend so I can go snowboarding stress free... Enter my evil professors.

Okay, so they're not really evil, just unfair. I though I was doing well, I only had one homework assignment to worry about before Monday and I was going to get that done Thursday night after work. But then yesterday, I find out I have a paper to write for my Senior Design class, and today I hear that the homework that's always due on Wednesdays is due on Monday next week, which means I can't do it Monday night like normal. Why must they do this to me? All I wanted was a peaceful first snowboarding day of the season, but I can't even get that.

Snow!!!

2004-10-31T23:24:00.000-07:00

So today was the day, first snowfall in the Denver metro area. Of course, I have managed to over-romanticize this whole event this year. Yes, snow means snowboarding, and pretty white stuff all over, but I seem to have forgotten that that same pretty white stuff on the roads can make driving... well, interesting.

As today is Halloween, one of the waiters at a restaurant my friends and I frequent (okay, so it's just IHOP) dressed up as Pocahontas. It was hilarious! And worth braving the wet roads to see, especially because before we went into IHOP the roads were only wet and not yet snowy. After eating our meals, we departed on the snow coated, not yet plowed roads for home. At this point, perhaps I should mention that I have moved since last winter, to a nice apartment on top of a nice, big hill. A nice, big, unplowed hill tonight. And perhaps I should also mention that I drive a lightweight, compact car. With no snow tires or chains.Thankfully, I managed to veer my way up the street to my apartment without damaging any of the cars parked on the side of the road.

I learned my lesson tonight: Stay out until the plows start running, then follow one home.

Three Reasons to Enjoy Fall

2004-10-30T23:54:00.000-06:00

The time change gives you an extra hour of sleep rather than robbing you of one.
The weather is once again fitting to be called "hoodie weather".
All the beautiful and fun scenes Mother Nature creates, changing leaves and the first snowfall especially.

Ah... me time.

2004-10-30T15:18:00.000-06:00

I really enjoy Saturdays. I get to do whatever I like all day until 5, at which time I have to go to work. But even that's not so bad, because I've had all day to relax and I generally like work anyways.

Today I had to wake up early to do things for school, but that wasn't as bad as it could have been, and when it was done, I had even more time to accomplish things, and even take a nap. I never have time to nap. Usually I start thinking about napping on Saturdays about half an hour before I have to leave for work... not the most opportune time to lay down.

Today in particular, I have been really productive; not just getting homework done, but taking care of things like grocery shopping and cleaning out my car. My stomach and Cheddar (that's my car) especially appreciate all my efforts today.

Thank goodness for computer class...

2004-10-27T15:01:00.000-06:00

...otherwise I would never get time to blog. I made it through a stressful week nearly unscathed. I got a test back from last Wednesday, a test that I thought I bombed, and miraculously got a 79%. I should have done better, but I am pleased with what I got for the small amount of class I attended and the even smaller amount of studying I did. The best part of the exam is the shot in the dark answer that was correct. That never happens for me.

After the extremely crappy feeling I got from life last week, I am making a serious effort to re-focus, set my priorities straight, and at least squeeze out a tiny bit of enthusiasm (hah!) for school. This week is going much better. I have gone to every class and even paid attention (most of the time), too. First time since the second week of school that has happened.

It's nearing registration time for next semester. I love registration time, it signifies that there is hope that this semester will end. Unfortunately it means there is still another semester looming ahead, but this time is my last time to register here. That is truly exciting.

Ah, procrastination.

2004-10-21T20:21:00.000-06:00

I must apologize for my extended absence from my blog. I've been busy. Surprise, surprise. I went out of town last weekend to visit a friend. It was altogether worth the time I spent there, but coming back was extrememly depressing, especially when I looked over my overflowing to do list and all I really wanted to do was sleep.

So I've dragged myself through this week, accomplishing the bare minimum, and facing large assignments due next week. I keep telling myself I will be more productive (I WILL be more productive), but whenever I set aside time as "productive time" I find some way to distract myself. (Blogging is productive, right?)

The root of the problem lies in my tendency to procrastinate. Procrastination is a skill I have been gradually building since I started high school and, if I do say so myself, I'm getting pretty darn good at it. If only I had enough spare time to effectively procrastinate. Anymore I only get a few good hours of procrastination a week, which severely limits time for activities such as blogging.