17 June 2009
Epic fail. I got a used car checked out by a mechanic and subsequently decided not to make an offer on it. Julia and I decided on the ride back that the massive inadequacies of the car were slightly hilarious. For your pleasure and amusement:
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30 May 2009
Dear Rice,
Now that I finally possess the right to designate myself a “concerned alumna”, I would like to address the topic of tradition. More specifically, I would like to comment upon a certain practice, pleading for a return to the values, customs, and doctrines that characterize our community and our university.
My most treasured memory of Orientation Week (familiar to Rice students as “O-Week”), (besides, of course, playing Sardines in Sewall Hall, ubangeeing co-advisors at other colleges, screaming at other colleges at the top of my lungs, losing my voice, and [of course] Austin Bratton) is engaging in the time-gilded ritual of hedge-jumping. After a thorough primer by our illustrious fellow, who was determined to see us initiated as quickly as possible into the ranks of Real Rice Students, my entire O-Week group lined up for our first attempts. I am proud to note that I rapidly mastered the correct technique: the gently curving approach run, the headfirst launch with the quarter-twist over the hedge itself, and the assertive shoulder landing and roll on the soft lawn. The fact that I emerged with the cuts and scars of warfare upon my arms is further evidence of my dedication and complete hardcoreness.
12 May 2009
Just a quickie update: I’ve been slowly unpacking and adjusting to ‘real life’ – the one where you cook your own food – again; I started my summer internship on Monday with Vestas. More on that later, or just ask me.
The pool here at the apartments is really short. Yeah, that was random. My shoulders don’t like me right now because I went and swam fly after work.
Oh, and I graduated on Saturday. Woot! It was really hot and humid. I will have pics up on Facebook at some point, as well as send some round to the relatives (like the official full regalia ones). In fact, if you want to be included on that picture-attachment email, please comment here or drop me a line. It is really weird saying I am a graduate, or having people at work refer to me as a Master’s student – kind of like having a birthday and having to remember your new age, or having a new address. But more significant, I suppose.
“No man drowns if he perseveres in praying to God, and can swim.” – Russian proverb
7 May 2009
In two days, I will finally have the right to place “B.S Mechanical Engineering” after my name. (I won’t be holding a diploma with that title for several more weeks, however – the cardboard tubes they’ll give us during Commencement will have a noticeable lack of diploma.) Over the past four years, my concept of engineering has definitely changed.
I think my original idea of what an engineer did and was developed from my parents (engineers who built cool stuff), from popular media like Star Trek, Stargate, and Jules Vernes’ works (engineers who saved the ship/team/world from imminent destruction), and from my fascination with 18th and 19th century inventors (engineers who were engineers before there were engineers). I thought it was awesome, and so I wanted – you might say was conditioned – to become an engineer. After all, who wouldn’t want to invent (current technical term: “design”) really cool, innovative stuff that would save the world, and possibly end up on a space shuttle in the process? And best of all, engineering and science were quantifiable; they could be described in numbers and figures, and everything could be predicted or simulated.
Wrong.
18 April 2009
Classes are over. (!!!!) (????) Fortunately or unfortunately (I haven’t decided yet), school is not.
On my plate:
ps. I finally added pictures to my Spring Break post below!
10 April 2009
Update: pictures added!
My blog decided, all by itself, to italicize everything on the page – what? I need to figure out how to fix this. Meanwhile, I need to finish transcribing my notes from spring break, so prepare for the uber-exciting conclusion.
In previous episodes: Galveston, the House of Doom, and preparing for the basement. I will be adding pictures very soon.
I’m done packing up my gym bag and am ready to leave after dinner. A quick recap of the past two days:
Tuesday we started off the morning by ripping up the carpet in a bedroom. The room was in a house over a shop in the historic part of Galveston: Morgan Studios. The owner, Danny Morgan, used to be a top costume designer in Broadway/New York (I think), but fell on hard times and set up a costume shop in Galveston. He’s now seventy-five-ish and has emphysema, which involves coughing up blood – lots of it – so the bedroom carpet had huge splotches of black, dried blood. We ripped it up in strips, bagged everything, and took them down the (steep) stairs to the street. The rest of the house/shop was pretty amazing – costumes, fabric, and multicolored feathers everywhere; rooms full of costumes, hats, shoes, and manikins, and just a general feel of the 1920s (and a little Victorian, too) in the decoration and architecture of the house.
That took us about an hour – after which we went back to the House of Doom. To clean out the basement.
5 April 2009
And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused his pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
5 April 2009
Go to dark Gethsemane,
You who feel the tempter’s power;
Your Redeemer’s conflict see;
Watch with Him one bitter hour;
Turn not from His griefs away;
Learn of Jesus Christ to pray.
7 March 2009
I think that this ASB (Alternative Spring Break) trip has been a good time to cement friendships and make some new ones. It’s also been a good way to get away from the intellectual constraints of Rice, away from arguing for the sake of arguing, and spend time in Christian community; just to bring up those topics which are so important, but aren’t talked about very much in normal conversation – God, salvation, His glory in nature, Christian service.
We continued on the same house today. I worked mainly in the bathroom, tearing out sheetrock. Unfortunately, the entirety of the sheetrock was backed by wood, which meant that we had to chip away at the stuff with the claw ends of crowbars and hammers, instead of just bashing it in between studs and watching it crumble. The ceiling was a killer. Grossest part: me taking apart a light/fan fixture with half an inch of dust on top. Wow.
7 March 2009
Pretty tired after a day’s work and a little run after dinner. I suppose a good thing over the last year has been me getting into a pretty routine workout regimen – now I just don’t feel right unless I’ve run, swum, or biked within the last day or so.
Today we were gutting a few rooms in a Galveston house within a half-mile of the gulf shore. Apparently the owners had ridden out the hurricane, and the storm surge, in the top floor of the house (basically the master bedroom). The mold had settled into a room on the bottom floor, and in the top floor from the rain. We were ripping out drywall and flooring, as well as moving out some really old holiday decorations to throw away – such as light-up lawn reindeer. The owners were grandparents, apparently pretty close with their grandchildren, and the grandmother is currently hospitalized due to some medical problem – a leg amputation? but I’m not quiet sure what it is. When you have a mold filter and safety glasses on, and you’re pounding drywall with a crowbar, you tend to miss conversational details, even if they’re important.
