Happiness and Fun for Everyone!

Trying to find a way to do something good without actually doing something? Want to give to the City of Hope Walk for Hope without walking? I have a proposition for you...

Well, I decided to walk in the Walk for Hope at City of Hope this year. It's next Sunday, 11/18. If you have any extra money and need a deductible donation, the City of Hope will be glad to help. Please visit my page at: http://www.cityofhope.org/fundraising/vfs/15274281/4923 or give me a call if you prefer to give cash or checks. I don't know what their minimum donation is online, but mine is what ever you want to give. I do need it before Sunday, though. Oh, and thanks to the people who responded to my e-mail and already donated...

Gracias, Bitte, and Merci!
(BTW, I already know I have a dumb sense of humor)

The parking structure is open! Horray!

Maybe I'll park there tomorrow...

I leave in 26 days.

I'm posting this message into cyber space in hopes that it does some good, somewhere. I wish to offer my sympathies to all those hurt. The more I hear about Virginia Tech, the more it sounds like my campus. There is nothing I can say or write that can ever take away the pain, anguish, and fear. It might be that the shear size of the tragedy brings it to the nation's attention, but to the students at Virginia Tech (especially those hurt), the wound is far deeper than we can imagine.

From,
A CHE student in CA

I'm thinking about upgrading to a paid account. However, I don't use a lot of those features, so I'm wondering if it's worth it. I could definitly see using voice posts and the picture storage. Any ideas or thoughts?

I'm alive. Really. I just don't have much to say. I guess I have to go do some serious amounts of Chemistry homework. And my taxes. See why I haven't posted anything?

I'm tired and lazy...why does this happen when I have so much to do?

I am so frustrated (and angry) with myself right now. I just fell flat on my face during the ME quiz today...yet again. I forgot the moments... I know you don't know what I'm talking about, but bare with me. I drew them and reminded myself "Don't screw up and forget the moments". What did I do? I screwed up and forgot the moments. That means everything is wrong and I get yet another quiz of pity points. And I had time. If only I had realized my mistake two minutes sooner...I realized the problem as I was walking down the freaking hall y'all! This sucks! Argh! I knew what to do, I just didn't draw the moments in my free body diagram! Damn it! Argh!

What professor gives only a week to do a research project? Darn it. And the quarter is starting to pick up the pace again. Joy, what homework assignment shall I do today?

I've been playing Sudoku in the paper lately, and the Astrological forcast is right beneath it. Today's is quite interesting:

"You're thinking more about what you want than about what you'll have to do to attain that goal. This is good, since the former will drive you, and the latter will only overwhelm you"

Now, that begs the question: what the hell do I want?

Your Aura is Red

Your Personality: Self-confident and stunning, you live in the now! You love life and experience all it has to offer. You in Love: You're a bit private and have trouble opening up. You need a secure guy who can deal with your independence. Your Career: Your ideal job gives you a ton of control and concrete results. Consider being a chef, surgeon, or architect.

You are a Cautious Red Light Dater

Your dating motto is "slow and steady wins the race" You prefer a long courtship to a whirlwind romance This doesn't mean that you are anti-social or cold You just need time to warm up to the right guy You're online dating style? You are likely to take your time on your profile Then, wait and see what kind of guy emails you As you get more comfortable, you meet more people.

Why does nobody return my phone calls?

I watched the flag pass by one day,
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease...
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.
I heard the sound of Taps one night,
When everything was still,
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That Taps had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin.
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea.
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.


Enjoy Your Freedom & God Bless Our Troops

I don't get it. Only a handful of other students around here remember who I am, yet all my professors know me by name. How is that possible? I mean, I'm just one of like 30 students in one of their three or four classes (sometimes more)! WTF?!?

FINALLY, A CLEAR SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF HEAVEN AND HELL!

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University of Massachusetts at Lowell, engineering dept.'s chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic(absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant.
One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in
time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.

Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives two possibilities:
1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and the pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.
2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over.

The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"

But then the siren song of the nearly empty, fifth floor library computer lab caught me. I was doing some reasearch; well, looking for a book. But I didn't see it, so I might have to try again later. I really have to get working on this research paper. I now have my topic, so it's time to get busy.

My ME midterm was today. Well, part I anyway. I have a take home portion that is due on Monday, but I did the in-class portion. I'm surprised. I think I did decent. I might be in the B-C range. So I screwed up on the thermal problem. So next week I'll get the definitve answer. It might make up for the two really horrible quizes. Maybe I should study a little bit more (and more often)... I am not looking forward to seeing that CE midterm again though. Geeze, that was horrible.

Not much going on. I'm quite glad to have Dad home, although my mom took the week off work, so that is a little annoying. She gets to stay home and go shopping and go to the spa while I get up at 5:45 to drag my butt to school.

On a happier note, Dad bought a bunch of things for the computers. While he was in Bosnia, he got to use a two-screen system on his computer. So he bought two refurbished flatscreens from Dell for us to use. but the really cool part was that he also got a Port Replicator (laptop dock) that we can both use. Mom might get a Dell laptop so she can use it too. So we can use the nice big screen and a real mouse and keyboard and not have to switch cords around as much. I think we're going to also try to install wireless internet. Good things come to those who wait. Although, it would be nice to not live at home. Sometimes. Yesterday I helped Dad set that up (instead of studying). Oh, and tomorrow I get odd work early so we can go down to San Juan Capistrano to go see Dad's family. Yay! Now the only thing I need to do is get that external hard drive set up so my laptop won't be so freaking slow! I got a 300 GB drive for Christmas... Think of all the music and pictures I can put on that! I might share it with the other laptops... there are slight problems with using laptops as your main computer.

Well, I'd better go and find that book. I only have twenty minutes or so until I have to leave for work.

Not just physically. I mean, I was in bed at 11 last night, which isn't too bad, but I have to get up early. And I have to get up early everyday, which is a killer. I'm also tired mentally. I'm tired of school. I'm tired to drifting in and out of classes. I'm tired of running around. I'm tired of my life. All I ever do is homework and running back and forth and mindlessly sorting papers at work. I want to do something else. But what? And how?

Last night I spent several hours doing homework for strenght of materials. And most of the will probably be wrong. And I probably failed the quiz in there this morning. Silly me, I didn't realize that I had to use oblique planes. I'm tired of everybody thinking I'm smart and then being slaughtered at the hands of ME professors. I'm begining to wonder if I'm supposed to be an engineer. I can't even pass the basic courses! I mean, this is only the middle of the second week. I shouldn't be worried about passing the class already! Oh, wait. I was worried before classes started! How on earth am I going to live through another eight and a half weeks of this stuff. I can do the problems, but only if I'm told what to do. I feel like they're expecting me to know something they haven't taught. It makes sence now, after the professor figuratively squashed me like a freaking bug on the wall. Maybe it's just the ME courses... maybe this is the engineering way of trying to thin the herd. But I still hate the nagging feeling that maybe I'm one of the ones they're trying to get rid of. Why do others "get it" and not me? What am I missing?

Fifteen damn units. Doesn't sound like that much, but I don't know how I'm going to make it through. I want to finish up. I hate having to explain to everyone why I'm never going to graduate. But I just can't handle that many units apparently. And four of the units are my German class. Not required by my degree, I'm just attempting to learn how to speak another language. I can't even do that well.

Ach, I have to get to class!

Some local humor for you. I'm waiting for my 9:00 lab to start, so I'm BSing on one of the computers.

I got two workbooks yesterday. Thankfully it was only about $40 dollars for them, but there might be another book later on. Neither of the books looked like a project manual, but I could be wrong. So I spend $303 total on books this quarter. If tuition doesn't get you, then books will.

Apparently I picked up several pretty intensive courses. Or they're just telling me that to try to scare me. I knew the ME class was going to be; that's the way all of them are. I've taken one, am registered in another, and still need three or four more. Fun. The Highway Engineering class (CE 222) is intensive, too. I mean what other class has two three hour labs in one week? I'm hopping it's pretty easy, just a lot of computer stuff. IGE is the "capstone" course. The last IGE class in the series; it covers the personal synthesis GE requirement. Shouldn't be as bad on weekly homework; the main assignment is a 15 page paper, but we get parts of it in stages. Then there's German. Not really hard, just learning a new language can be time consuming. Anyway, I'd better get off here before class starts.

Bye.

Happy New Year and all that jazz. Woohoo, it's 2006 already.

iPod + cookies = happiness

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and any other greeting I can't spell or think of.

Tu amiga.