Grad Schools!

So I'm back at school (have been for just over three weeks) and everything is going kind of crazy! I had all of these grand delusions of having a peaceful and relaxing semester because I only have four classes, and none of them are MIS classes. Hah! Not true...

I decided that I am going to apply to grad schools this year instead of working first. So my boyfriend and I and our friends Patrick and Karissa drove up to Chicago (yes, from Tulsa) over Labor Day weekend under the premise of looking at grad schools. Or at least, grad schools was the cover story we gave our teachers so that they wouldn't yell at us for skipping class on Friday. It was also about having fun! But the trip started out pretty disastrously. About three hours into the drive we were in the left lane on Route 44 when someone merged into us! JonMarke was driving and to avoid being hit full on by this car he was forced to swerve into the ditch between the two directions of the highway where we spun around and skidded for about a quarter mile before coming to a stop. Luckily, no one was hurt and the car wasn't damaged at all! Like, no cosmetic damage either! It was a pretty scary experience all in all, but the rest of our drive was fairly uneventful.

The rest of the trip got steadily better from then on (I mean, how could it not!). We spent Friday visiting grad schools (University of Chicago and Northwestern), we walked all around downtown Chicago on Saturday and ended the night at an improv comedy club, and JonMarke and I got to have brunch with my cousin Alison and her husband Kirk on Sunday. So all in all it was really great. We loved the University of Chicago and the city itself, and we really liked the Northwestern campus but unfortunately the admissions woman who did my info session was having a bad day or something. I was really unimpressed and she seemed very haughty and uptight.

The visit got me into the 'grad school mode' though and I have spent the entire week since being back working on applications. I've started writing essays, which is by far the hardest part for me. But luckily my boyfriend is an English major so at least for "englishy" type things he is super useful. And my mom has looked over a bunch of stuff for me too which is really great.

Unfortunately the first application is due on October 1st, which is just two weeks away, and I found out today and yesterday that all of my classes are at the point where large projects and tests are coming up, you guessed it, within the next two weeks! So it's a bit hectic trying to get my essays finished in time to have my mom and teachers and friends look at them before submitting them and study for tests and research industries for Management class and try to have a life all at the same time. But I'm sure I'll figure it out!

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I can’t believe my summer is almost over! Looking back it seems both really long and really short. I feel like I’ve been home forever and working at Fireman’s Fund forever, which is really cool. But I remember thinking “Oh I’ve got months until I go back to school” and then “I’ve got weeks” and now I have only 6 days! And I haven’t packed… Woops!

I’m finishing up my internship, so these last couple of days have been spent getting ready to hand off all of my responsibilities to other people so that they can maintain them once I’m gone.

And I’m starting to think about school again. Not only my next and last semester of undergrad, but thinking about grad school as well. It’s time to start applying, or at least thinking about applying. And also, I’ve been talking to a lot of people at work and a few of them strongly suggested that I work first before getting my degree. I had already sort of decided not to do that, but now that the idea has been brought up again I’m re-thinking my previous decisions. I realized that I don’t really have a strong feeling or reason to go to grad school now or to go later. I just want to go eventually and the timing doesn’t matter so much. I think what I’ve decided is that I’ll just sorta see what happens. I’ll apply to some schools, and apply for some jobs, and see how it goes and what I get offered. I’m pretty sure I’ll make the best out of whatever decision I make, so I’m not super worried, which is nice.

Some friends and I are taking a trip to Chicago to visit the University of Chicago and Northwestern University over labor day weekend. Those two schools, as well as Columbia and NYU in New York are the main schools I’m looking at applying to, so it will be great to have a little bit of information about at least the Chicago schools before I make any decisions. It should be a lot of fun. A lot of driving (we’re driving from Tulsa to Chicago), but a lot of fun also!

And Nana’s memorial service is this weekend. Grandpa is here to go to the service, and my boyfriend is up here too, visiting some family in Sacramento. So we’re all going over to her house tomorrow to start getting things set up for that. We’ve been going through all of the photos that we found in her house. It’s amazing how many pictures of dogs and plants we found! I mean seriously, there were like boxes and boxes of photos without any people in them. But it’s been really fun to see all of those old photos, and we’re going to try to get some of them together to display at the memorial.

And I have to pack!

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A lot of thinking

I've been doing a lot of thinking recently. (Not that I don't think a lot at other times, but I've been more conscious of it recently I suppose).

Nana passed away eleven days ago. I don't really know what else to say about that. I think it just finally caught up with me yesterday. For the first few days it all just seemed pretty surreal. Like "Oh Nana's just away, not at the house, on a trip, or something". But it's been eleven days and she hasn't come back. And I think it's finally real for me now. We went to lunch at Easy Street Cafe yesterday, and I think that was partly it. We haven't been to Easy Street in 14 years, since 1995 when Papa passed away. It was his favorite cafe and we used to go there all the time when Kyle and I were younger; I think Nana just never wanted to deal with the memories of going back there after Papa wasn't around anymore. It just sort of seemed like a very real sign that Nana wasn't around anymore.

But it's made me think a lot about Grandma. Oddly enough I had been thinking about her a lot this summer already. My boyfriend's grandmother passed away at the beginning of the summer and he says it just didn't really hit him for about a week until one day it did, and he realized that we would never get to meet each other. I had been thinking that about Grandma recently too. I think she would have loved JonMarke (and she would have been so happy that I had found a nice Christian boy who made me happy!) and it makes me sad that she isn't around to meet him.

And I've been thinking about Papa for mostly the same reason. We've found the greatest pictures in Nana's house from years and years ago, and it makes me sad that Papa's not around anymore. JonMarke reminds me a lot of him, with his love of English and debate. Luckily Nana did get to meet JonMarke and I know she really liked him, which is really comforting.

(I figured out what else to say about Nana passing away...) She had been diagnosed with lung cancer at the age of 84 after almost 70 years of smoking. So we at least had some sort of warning. She had gone through radiation treatment which shrunk the tumor, but not as much as we had hoped. In a very selfish way I am in no way ready to not have Nana around anymore, but it really was for the best that she passed away the way she did. She hadn't started to get sick from the cancer. She passed away peacefully in her sleep, in her house, with her dogs, surrounded by her garden. It was all exactly as she wanted, and so for her sake it really was the best.

My parents and I have been over at Nana's every day for the past eleven days, dealing with her house and her things and all of that. She was a huge collector (she and Papa both) and we've just been amazed at how much stuff is in that house. Eleven days later we've got most of it at least looked at once and we've figured out what to do with most of it, even if we haven't quite gotten around to doing it yet. But it's time for a break. Last week was insane at work what with finishing up a huge requirements project that was due to be signed off on by Friday, finishing up our intern project which culminated with an executive presentation on Friday, and a huge potluck for the IT department on Wednesday which I had been volunteered to help plan. All of it put together just sort of threatens to make me insane, so I came straight home today after work instead of going to Nana's, which I think was the correct choice.

So now it's time to stop crying (for tonight at least), and get some food in me. Hopefully that will help.

On the bright side, I'm taking Friday off from work and flying down to Escondido on Thursday night to visit my boyfriend. We're going on a date to Disneyland this weekend! It should be nice and relaxing, which is exactly what I need right now.

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Ok, so once again it has been a very long time since I posted anything here. I feel like I did a pretty good job of updating while I was in Spain, but it seems I fell off the face of the earth again after I got home. At least this post is within a year of the last one...

But I have been thinking about this blog for a couple of weeks now, thinking “I should update this again. It’s been a while!” Also, because in a year I’ll be going to grad school (hopefully!) and I know that at the very least, my mom reads this blog, and it would be good to get in the habit of updating this so that in a year when I move out she can keep up with my life or whatever.

I have a pretty cool internship this summer! I am working as a business analyst intern in the IT department of Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, and it’s pretty cool so far. The first couple of weeks were a little hectic, switching back and forth between being super overwhelming and slightly boring as I found work to do, did it, then waited for approvals or more info, or whatever, and then went back to being busy when everyone answered my emails all at once! That hasn’t really stopped, even five weeks into the internship, but at least now I know (sorta) what I’m doing and what’s expected of me. It’s pretty fun!

My parents started a new diet. Which, of course, means I started a new diet (whether or not I wanted to doesn’t really matter; Mom cooks, so I eat what she cooks!) It’s actually a pretty interesting diet (the Zone diet, if any of you know). I’m doing bits and pieces of it, again, cuz I eat whatever Mom cooks. But one part that seemed pretty interesting was the idea of a 10 day “detox” from sugar and alcohol. Apparently that is actually REALLY HARD! Not the alcohol part; I drink maybe once every two months anyways, but man do I miss the sugar! I can’t even eat my Rice Krispies cuz they have refined sugar in them! So anyways, it’s going to be a long ten days… I started Friday, but given that we had a huge barbecue at our house for the 4^th of July, and that Aunt Katy’s baked beans have a lot of sugar in them, I may be off a day or two. Mom just said “Let’s just go off diet for a night!” but I’m not sure if the whole NO sugar thing works if you just skip it every once in a while. :-)

Other than that not much interesting is going on. Yet again I am the only one of my friends who came home for summer. I’m starting to think this is my fault though. All my friends went to places like Boston or San Diego for college, but I went to Tulsa. There’s no way I’m staying in Oklahoma for the summer, but I understand wanting to be in San Diego! But it’s ok, I’m working full time so it’s not like I have a lot of time anyways!

So there you go, another “I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth!” update. I really will try to keep this going this time. I understand if you don’t quite trust me, given my spotty track record, but I promise I’ll make an effort!

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Whee! School!

Ok, so not only did I get home safely from Spain, but I then proceeded to have two months of summer, fly to Tulsa, and arrive safely in Tulsa also.

So yes, I'm back in Tulsa now. Today is our first day of classes, but I have been here for two weeks already. We spent those two weeks doing staff training. I am the RA of the 5th Place House, the only house on Sorority Row that isn't a sorority. Training was super intense. Training started at 7:45 every day with breakfast and technically ended at 6pm with dinner. However, most nights we had staff meetings or some other something after dinner that had to be done.

Needless to say, I haven't slept much in the past two weeks. However, I got my door decs done, we finished with training, everyone got checked into their respective residence halls, and we had our first mandatory house meeting last night. So I think things are going to calm down pretty soon here. (Please let things calm down pretty soon!)

I don't have class until 1pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that's pretty exciting. However, I do have a night class on Mondays, which is pretty lame. Oh well, my experience with night classes in the Business college is that though they are touted as going from 6pm to 8:45pm, they usually don't last past about 7:45. We'll see.

That's about all for now I suppose. We'll see after I have some classes.

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Coming Home!!!

Ok so, I begin my trek homewards in an hour and a half. It's going to be kind of an epic journey, this one. I leave Alicante on a bus at 12:45am Wednesday morning. That bus should arrive in Madrid at 6am. From there I catch a cab to the Barajas airport. Then I have a flight that leaves at 9:55am to London. Then from London I fly directly to San Francisco and if everything goes well, I arrive at 4:40pm. It will exactly 24 hours minus five minutes of traveling. Eew.

I almost died laughing the other day when I got an email from my mom saying something along the lines of "Can't wait to see you again! I'm gonna pick you up from the airport. Ooh! If you get in at 4:40pm, if we hurry we might be able to make it to the Wednesday night coached run/strength workout at 6:30pm!" Turns out she only meant for me to show up as an honoree presence, not as a participant. I was a bit worried for a second there though.

The past week has been pretty interesting. My roommate from Sevilla, Jenna, came down to visit for a few days, which was pretty awesome. We spent a lot of time on the beach and just hanging out. I had forgotten how much fun she is, but we just laughed and laughed and hung out for about six days and it was great! Speaking of spending time on the beach, you should see how tan I am! I'm about eight shades darker than I was when I got here, and the tan lines from my ring and my bikini bottoms are pretty striking!

I spent the past few days packing, and it turns out that for the first time in my entire life I managed to pack two suitcases both within the legal weight limits of the plane! Might have something to do with the fact that because I'm traveling internationally I am allowed 70lbs per bag instead of just 50lbs, but whatever. They're legal, and I don't have to pay extra!

Also! I just checked online and my grade for the programming class was up. I got a 7.3 out of 10, which is pretty frickin amazing! You need a 5 or higher to pass, and the way I hear it...half of the class (no matter what class it is) fails, and the other half gets somewhere between a 5 and an 8. So, I figure that means I did pretty well. Also, it's pretty good considering I'm not used to this system at all. I had one chance to pass this class: the final. No other real grades, so, I'm pretty happy!

But, I just wanted to put this up, cuz I'm leaving for the bus station in about half an hour. I'll see those of you in the Bay Area soon!

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So only ten more days until I go home! Crazy!

I've had three finals so far, and I have three left. I think I did pretty well on the three I've had so far, so hopefully that's true, and I do just as well on the ones I have left. I got a 95% on the practical half of my programming final, and the theory part is tomorrow at 9am. That means I have a pretty good chance of actually passing that class, which is a relief because most of my schedule for next year is based on the assumption that I have already taken and passed that class.

I went to Calpe with my friend Wendy on Friday. Calpe is a little coastal town about two hours north of Alicante. We went just for a day trip, to walk around, see the sights. We ended up at the Peñon de Ifach, which, loosely translated, mean "craggy rock of Ifach". It is surrounded by a "state park" type of deal, and really was very pretty. We decided that it would be cool to climb the thing. So we did. The first third of the "craggy rock" was easy because there was a path of dirt and small stones. About a third of the way up we ran into a tunnel through the rock. That was where it got interesting. Whatever type of rock this peñon was made out of, it was slippery smooth. So there were ropes in the tunnel to hold on to so you didn't just fall down. Once we got out of the tunnel, the real fun began.

It is nesting season for the seagulls, so we were warned by countless signs as we began our ascent that it was nesting season and therefore the North and Northwest ascent routes should be avoided. Not knowing anything about the different ascent routes of the craggy rock, and it being about midday, we weren't quite sure which were the North and Northwest routes. So we figured, we'll go up, and if the birds get pissed off, we'll just turn around. So anyways, we get out of the tunnel and see that the "path" really no longer exists. There is just rock, and some parts of the rock that look like maybe they are safer to climb on than other parts. Sometimes there were more ropes to hold on to, and sometimes there was a little bit of dirt mixed in with some smaller stones that we could walk on. But mostly we were sort of clambering over large smooth rocks. And there were a lot of birds. A LOT of birds. And a lot of bird poo. We got another third of the way up before we really thought about the birds though. But once we were about two thirds of the way up, the screeching got louder and the birds got closer to us. At one point Wendy said something about not being a Hitchcock fan, and I remembered that I had just rewatched that movie before I came home from school for Christmas break. A few minutes later it was clear that her remark had, in fact, tempted fate as a large seagull swooped at her and tried to poop on her! It missed, but just barely.

The rest of our ascent was more of the same. Large smooth rocks, swooping screeching seagulls, and lots of bird poo. But we made it to the top without actually getting hit by the poo, and without falling off the "craggy rock". We took a bunch of pictures, and I even took a video, after her comment about "The Birds". (I will post the video somewhere later, my internet kinda fails right now). And then we came back down. Again, narrowly avoiding the bird poo and the falling off the mountain parts. By the time we got down, however, I could barely walk. We made it all the way back to the bus, which took us to the train, and we both almost fell asleep on the way home.

When I got back to my house I climbed into a hot bath to soak my aching muscles. Unfortunately, it was only then that I realized that somehow I had managed to put sunscreen on my face, arms, shoulders, and back, but completely miss my chest and lower legs. The hot water that felt so good on my muscles was actually quite painful on my burnt skin. Sleeping was tough too.

Yesterday the Moros y Cristianos festival began in San Blas (a little neighborhood about five minutes away) and Wendy decided it would be fun to go see the parade. She was right, except for the parts that required me to get out of bed, walk to San Blas, and stand for three hours watching a parade. The parade was super cool though! I'll put pictures of that up later.

So today I am still sore, though much much better than yesterday. And my burn has faded to a nice tan. So really, it's all ok. Except that I have to get up at 6:30am tomorrow to get to my final on time. Eww!


Pictures from Calpe are here.

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