Gifts and Curses

I think blogs have gone out of style. Oh well, that means it's okay if I never update mine.

I think I watched about 4 hours of the office today with my whole family. Sweet!

I will be returning to Norman in less than one week. I will have a house, a car, and I will be in grad school. Things will be the same, but different.

Semester 8

Wow, what a great year. I can't believe I've graduated already. Here's what I'll remember about my last semester.

• 2nd Annual 80s French toast at Fenway. The side ponytails were awesome.
• Tootsie Rolls. And Tootsie Roll wrappers. A lot of both. Probably well over 3000.
  
• Andrea's Day of Beauty, aka the Miss OU pageant. An enlightening experience.
• Spandex!
• Discovering the duck pond
• Valentine's MT
  
• Quantum...
• The general grad school crisis
  
• The month long cry-a-thon in February/March due to Vanderbilt calling me about a potential fellowship
• The 48-hour visit to Nashville complete with delayed flight.
• Vanderbilt rejecting me
• Naomi's visit: snowcones, the duck pond, and getting soaked in the rain on the way to Andrea's
  
• Purdue visit with my mom
• The great flood of '07 in Norman
• Glorieta
• The Game
• The most excellent Chris Valentine's prank (Just Married...)
• Amy Grosser visiting
  
• Easter in Mustang
• The awesome electronic waterguns from Danny's mom and the attacks that promptly followed on all those studying in the classroom and Chris and Mike and Chris...and Chris
• Passing the waterguns on to other people to squirt Chris.
• The most boring semester of classes ever.
• Getting mistaken for an RA again.
  
• Watching The Office. A lot.
• Study Party Bingo.
• Rain just about every day for the last two or three weeks of school.
• The Wasielewski family randomly sitting behind the Weisbrook family at commencement.
• Dr. Fagan bossing us around (loudly) at graduation.

There may be more, but not tonight. I'm going to sleep and then I'm going to Chicago tomorrow.

another lame post

For anyone who cares, here is a picture of my new (used) car:




Also, I would really like to read this book. In case you were wondering.

on being home...

Church cookbooks are the best. Period. I think everyone needs a standard Betty Crocker or the Joy of Cooking cookbook to get the full gamut of recipes. But after that, church ladies make the best food and therefore, the best recipes and, collected, the best cookbooks.

I also have acquired a car. It is neat. I'm happy. It's a Honda. That means it shouldn't die on me. :)

I'm basically doing a whole lot of nothing while I'm home. This is good. This is also bad. Now that car shopping is over, I'll be doing even more nothing. Unless I actually start cleaning up my room. Motivation is sadly lacking...

My sister is bored a lot recently too. So we hang out sometimes.

Also, my quantum grade was not very nice to me this semester. Oh well. I'm a grad school student now, so it doesn't matter.

That is all. Except that The Office is awesome.

Cali

I want to go to California. Seriously.

Wrapping things up...

I graduate in one week. That's absolutely crazy. My four years of college here are kind of a fuzzy blur, but I have many dear, amazing memories from this place. God knew what He was doing when He brought me here. And I'm pretty sure He knows what He's doing by keeping me here, even if it occasionally seems like the dumbest idea in the world.

So, I can't sleep. I'm terribly sleep-deprived, but I laid in bed for an hour and a half to know avail. So, I got up and read for a bit. I'm going to make another attempt after I finish writing this. These past two weeks have been crazy. I spent 40 hours two weeks ago working on my capstone project/report. Our presentation was last Monday though, so that's completely over. Thank goodness. As is my extra credit paper for numerical methods. I think I overcomplicated that paper a bit. Oh well, that tends to be my typical approach.

This summer is sneaking up on me. People keep asking if I'm excited about Chicago. The answer is "yes", except that I haven't really thought about it much. I'm just trying to survive the next week. Then I can graduate in peace and go home and start thinking about summer.

There's a few unknowns for the fall too. I still don't quite have a place to live. Neither does Katie though. There are two or three potential houses, so that's a step at least. A car for the summer/fall would also be nice too. Hopefully that will work out. Again, something that will hit the radar after graduation.

Life is going well, though, in all honesty. It's been a rough couple of weeks, but I'm getting through. God is faithful . I will make it.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

-Emily

capstone

Capstone report: 61 pages and counting. It's due at 5. This should be fun.

school

Remember when I used to write in this thing on a regular basis? Wow.

Well, I'm ready to graduate. And by that, I mean "I'm ready to be done with capstone" and quantum, and thermo, and numerical methods....

I got a 29% on my quantum test today. I hit the average. Awesome.

Grad school decision = OU
Advisor = Dr. McCann

Currently Listening: Indelible Grace
Currently Reading: if only I had time for that...

Purdue

Purdue is a lovely place. Definitely a college town.

My mom and I got pizza tonight and there were Tootsie Rolls in the box with it :)

I wish I wasn't working on my capstone right now :(

March 14 = Wednesday

I'm exhausted and I'm tired of crying every day. Actually, the two are probably connected...

Why do legal pads seem to not count if they're not yellow?

It's been a Copeland week, so my iPod is coming to Nashville with me.

Okay, back to packing.

Spring

Oklahoma is turning beautiful again. :)

I fly to Nashville tomorrow to visit Vanderbilt. I'm meeting with 12 different professors for about 30 minutes each. I'm scared.

test

Template

New template. I didn't make and therefore don't completely like it. I'll either revise it or scrap it entirely soon. We'll see.

Also, Blogger is very confused and doesn't know if I should be seeing the old features or the new features.

More decisions...

This cartoon is awesome, but only like one of you will get it.



Why is it that right after you make a decision a bunch of great alternatives come your way? Right now a lot of places besides OU sound really great for post-graduation. IBM sounds good, either for summer or as a job. Purdue I could really take or leave, but they accepted me and offered me a TA position. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, called me this week twice about my application that I never finished online and didn't submit, but they want to talk to me. Too bad Tennessee sounds like a great place to live and the program sounds interesting. But you know what, I made my decision and I made it for a reason and those reasons haven't changed. I just need to trust God that I am making the best decision and keep going. *sigh* I really do have a hard time making decisions. Also, a prof at OU that I loved having for class but is apparently hard to work for doing research apparently wants to talk with me and a friend about doing research with him. Wow. I think I really do have a lot of options right now; aka, more decisions.

notice:

Oh yeah, just in case you guys forgot:

Decisions

I made a couple of decisions today. Actually, I'm fairly certain these decisions were made awhile ago but for some reason I couldn't quite justify them, either to myself or to other people. Mostly to other people, actually.

Decision #1: I will be staying at OU next year. Unless something very big happens that would cause me to seriously reconsider that choice. Even if I get into Purdue and get funded, I will stay here. I've had a few people tell me that I should try to go to a better school. Honestly, I could probably get into whatever school I wanted to, maybe even get funded at a lot of them. The best reason that people had for telling me to leave was that it would be better for my career if I want to be a professor. That's definitely true. I can't and won't deny that. However, there are, in fact, things that are more important than a career. I've spent the past 3.5 years here focused on academics. That can't change entirely, seeing as I am still going to grad school, however, there's a lot of stuff at OU that, while not as a whole "better", is better for me at this point. I feel like I would have a lot of opportunity to grow spiritually if I stay at OU. Granted, this opportunity has probably been here the entirety of my time in Norman, but I didn't take it. I'm sure there are opportunities in Indiana as well, but I think having to adjust to a new environment and friends and professors would have the potential to distract me a lot from more important things. I have amazing friends in Norman, friendships that are getting deeper to the point where we are challenging each other. I'm not ready to give that up and I think that those are perfectly good reasons to stay in Norman at OU.

Decision #2: I will be going to Project Impact this summer, probably in Chicago. This decision was also mostly made awhile ago. I think my mom wants me to come home for the summer. Part of me would like that, but the rest of me knows that I fall into really bad habits at home. Having my own car at that point would help, but I think this is a time that I really need to be building good habits and again not focusing on anything school-related. Oddly enough, I'm also really looking forward to living with and getting to know more girls. I am getting better :)

Green

Okay, I thought I'd revive this template for awhile.

Purdue

Update: the Purdue application finally went in today. About a month late.

And one of my reference letters at least has been sent.

I'm feeling pretty accomplished here.

Baby steps...

It's really late and I should never write this late....

It's 3:15 in the am on a Monday night and I am working on Numerical Methods. I think something is wrong. Oh well. I'm blaming quantum. Semester scapegoat = quantum. Shrug.

Tuesday lunch is tomorrow. Yay! I accidentally got four people to write letters of recommendation for me when I only need three. Oh well. My Purdue application is also ridiculously late. Again, oh well. I'm not particularly keen on leaving this state anyway. This semester is blah. That's about all there is to say about it. People are still wonderful though. So that's still a plus.

Meh. I'm going to finish up my numerical methods and then sleep for a bit before attempting quantum again. Sadness. I wish I was better at math.

Goodnight.

Old Cold Coffee on the Dashboard

I took the GRE yesterday. I was pretty pleased with the results, which means I don't have to think about taking it again. Most excellent. Now I just have to figure out whether I'm taking the physics GRE in April. Unfortunately, I think the answer is "yes".

Yesterday afternoon I went to the mall with my sister so she could shop for jeans. I returned with no jeans, but I did find Super Scrabble for 50% off, which I immediately bought. I win.

Break is drawing to a close. I need to pack. I have a lot more stuff going back to school with me than I left with. I go down to Rolla on Wednesday afternoon and then I rendezvous with Ellen there on Thursday morning. I'm actually a little bit sad. This has been a good break. Having something to work on (i.e. GRE studying) has helped me a lot by occupying my brain. I'm pretty excited to get back, though. And I'm still really pumped about the 12 hours I'm taking. Hopefully it will actually be easier than last semester. If not, I think I'll be confused and then I'll probably cry. Crying is a typical default solution.

Semester goals: do less homework; be more introspective; work at correcting problems I notice with myself rather than just ignoring them.

Currently listening: Blinders On, Sean Watkins; Here to There, Nickel Creek
Currently reading: Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis