Life in the Fast Lane

There are times when I think that I want life to just hurry up so I can get this school stuff over with and get on with "living" (whatever that means) and there are others when I wish it would slow down because I know it will all continue to rush by.

I had a hurry up moment the other day. I found out that a friend from high school, who I am still friends with but amidst the craziness of Tech (she's an ID major) we've lost touch, is getting married next month. The last time we hung out was at Six Flags night. She was wearing a ring that night, but said it wasn't her engagement ring. It was hard to explain the feeling that I got. I all of a sudden wanted to forget about grad school and get a job and start working on that life that I've always imagined I'll end up with.

Then, I guess some perspective catches up with me. Do I really want time to hurry by? Won't I wish for these minutes back later on, when times speeds by at an even faster rate? I think so. My challenge now is to enjoy where I am and make every day valuable. To look forward to what lies ahead without taking today for granted. It's going to be tough.

I go through these phases. As compared to some, I think I'm a pretty low maintenance girl... except when it comes to jewlery. I LOVE nice jewlery. And because of all the marriage/engagement talks happening, I've been amusing myself online again. Poor Will has gotten to hear about all of it... he now (almost) knows my taste... at least my current taste. I know this phase will pass. But it is exciting to think that someday it will happen.

I have been very busy (of course). Work has been taking a lot of my time, but it has been interesting. Some pretty important NASA people were at ASDL this past Thursday for a meeting, but unfortunately I missed a good part of it because I had to work on something they wanted to take back with them. I did get to watch Doc do his Jedi Mind tricks on him (we all decided he is Yoda - he has a green laser pointer) and score some more deals with them. Now I will be working on an Air Force thing.

Alden and Kaya were here both Friday and Sunday. Alden brought his new bike and Will and I took him to practice riding it. It is so cute to see Will interact with him. I will post pictures soon. Sunday we were watching OLN and everytime a cyclist was on the TV Kaya would point and say "Uncle Will!" That was really cute too.

Saturday I went swimming with Alex, Brian, Lucas and Will. We had a good time. Brian is really funny when he opens up. And Alex is always amusing, of course. We are now interracial opposite sex cousins.

Here comes another week...

Boredom

I have had absolutely nothing to do at work today. Dr. Kirby is up at NASA and we're (me, Elise, Sarah - the planning matrix team) on hold until she gets back. Yesterday when we asked for more to do Nando said he would give us something but of course that never happened (wait - I learned that lesson last summer!) so here I am. I got in this morning, checked email, read the news, when to class, went to lunch with Will Randall, now I'm back just waiting til it's a decent time to head up to Roswell (so I miss Colin 's wake-up crankiness). What is it with cranky boys named Colin? I wish I had remembered my MSE book but by the time I did I was on the on-ramp to the highway.

Anyway, I am in a cube for the summer, so that is pretty nice. I share with Jason, which is even nicer. We have fun iming (even though I can turn around and poke him... which I do) and goofing around.

I've actually been getting into the swing of things pretty well but I am still slow in the morning and getting to bed. New rule: no sugar close to bed time. Yesterday my dad brought home brazilian desserts, so I had to try one (so he wouldn't feel bad) and I think it kept me up late. Yesterday was also messed up. The morning was awesome cause it took me no time to get to work, but I paid for that in the afternoon. An accident about 8 miles from my exit on 285 shut down practically everything so that it took me 45 minutes to drive 4 miles (from the bridge to 285 from 85 N to the Chamblee Dunwoody exit to my house). So my bike ride was late so dinner was late so everything was messed up and my body didn't wind down until about 1230am (which wouldn't be bad if I didn't have to get up at 645).

I have gotten to work out the past two days so that's cool, because I want to get back to where I was (and go beyond that) before I got sick. Tuesday I was able to make it up the big hill (largest, steepest hill ever that I was only able to walk up with Will just a few weeks ago) but then my ride had to be shorter because my legs were dead. Yesterday was more moderate, but I still can tell how much ground I lost in the past few weeks.

This weekend will consist of biking, pool time (hopefully with Alex and Steve), babysitting, and the kids on Sunday. If Star Wars isn't too violent I'll take Alden to watch it. If it is oh well.

Isn't Summer Supposed to be Less Busy?

So... summer is here. For the past 2 weeks I have been trying to cram my stuff into my room at home. True that it is maybe 1.5 times the size of a dorm room, but it already has a lot of stuff in it. However, I think I'm mostly done. It's disheartening that I will move it all out again in a few months and shove it into another tiny room only to move it again in December. I enjoy being at home because of Piper, the food and being able to watch Ellen Degeneres in the evening. I also like Dunwoody for bike riding. I don't like the commute and not having a ton of channels. But I still get OLN, which is vital for the summer. I miss Alex and her craziness and it brightens my day (because I bust out laughing) to find emails from her with the subject of PENIS in my Inbox.

I have mostly been working the past two weeks and trying to get into what my summer schedule will be. I hope to ride my bike everyday and get in bed by 1030 (that is my rule... I am allowed to read if I'm in bed by 1030, no go if it's any later). So far I have already read The Notebook and The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks. Beautiful books but man did I cry a lot! Now I am reading Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton, which is awesome! Coming up next is the Shopaholic Series, The Hitchhiker's guide to the Universe, and some book J.T. recommended. If you would like to add to my list, let me know!

Work has been fairly busy and will pick up even more since we just got awarded this NASA thing (sorry, it's proprietary) and it's due by early July. Hopefully I will get to meet Dr. Griffin, head of NASA. Since all the grad students are gone for the summer Dr. Kirby hired a ton of people which means Will, Jason Liles and Alex's Brian will all be working there this summer. It's going to be tons of fun! Too bad I have to go to class in the middle of it all :-p If only there was a way to only work this summer and still graduate in the fall (oh wait... there is... but i'm not doing it).

Today I ran into problems with financial aid, then I ran into problems with Revonda Mullis. The ASDL came to my rescue with the financial aid stuff (allowing me to register for research hours) but Lexie still called Revonda a "silly cow". That's hilarious...and true. I feel like the rest of undergrad is now on the back burner and I'm just biding my time til I get to be a grad student there.

This past week was eventful since I broke two teeth (currently have bonds, will need porcelain veneers in the future), my sister moved home, I met my brother's new girlfriend (blonde, as usual) and I had to deal with the AE department. I think that's enough excitement for one week. I was able to get almost completely caught up on my gilmore girls, although I missed this week's :-(

"It Starts With De....

...and ends in lusional." That was Will's comment about my (sucky) roommate Carol after last night. But, before I explain what happened, let me explain my thoughts and expectations.

In high school there was a large gap between my maturity level and that of some of my peers. I always assumed that it was because my school didn't have very high academic standards, so those that were lower on the totem pole were also more immature. I really looked forward to Tech. I thought (for some crazy reason) that because it was a smart school the maturity level would increase. Unfortunately I have discovered that in some cases it is not only the same as in high school but is even lower. Imagine my disappointment. Among some other examples (like Mr. Chief Engineer of my design group throwing a little tantrum - which included slamming things - when the proposal wasn't the way he wanted) what happened last night exactly fits the bill.

Since the first day I moved in the girl in the room immediately next to mine has not been nice. While Alex and Jen and I tried to be friendly to each other and tried to get to know each other, Carol was in denial about having roommates. She contributed nothing. I purchased everything for the bathroom, cleaned it, as well as took out her trash. I even turned the fire alarm off (that woke up everyone in the apartment) after her not so bright boyfriend set it off somehow and just left. Carol, in fact, disliked us so much that she would look the other way or even walk in a different direction to avoid us when she saw us.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not like a moocher, and she is a moocher. But above that she is inconsiderate, particularly with her music. It has always been loud. I understand during the day, but she generally returns at 1am, turns it on, goes to bed late, then lets her alarm go off for 3 hours in the morning (which I can also hear) after which the music immediately starts back up (and it's almost never good music). Anyway...I mentioned to her once that it was loud. I saw no improvement. I suggested moving her subwoofer away from the wall that we share. No improvement.

Then, over Christmas break, Alex gets a message through Brian from the girls who live across from us (and are on the swim team) that she had been playing music so loud that she was disturbing them. I sent her an email about it.

The next semester saw no improvement (naturally). Since asking her, emailing her, and leaving her notes didn't work I resorted to banging on the wall. I didn't do this too often, but I did do it last night. Instead of the music getting softer, it go louder. I was about to go knock on her door to explain to her that I have been tired since August because I haven't been able to sleep well and that after the past few weeks I really would like to rest when she came out of the room and started yelling at me. She immediately started swearing and raising her voice (I'm beginning to think she may have a hearing problem - everything she does is loud). Among her accusations, she called all three of us Bitches for not including her and she yelled at me for not talking to her face to face. She said I had only mentioned the noise to her once, etc. Maybe she forgot that in this country your rights end as soon as you start start affecting the rights of others.

That's where the delusiconal comes in. Hopefully I don't have to explain how crazy all of her accusations were. This brings up another thing I have thought about - how different perceptions of the same situation can be depending on who you are. She seemed very irrational and even bordering on violent so I chose to leave and start the move out process a few days early. Will (who witnessed everything from day 1), showing off his wisdom and maturity (as usual), talked me through it. He hypothesized that she probably thinks many people in her life are "bitches" and that she can do no wrong. He also pointed out how she was not open to reasoning and was defensive from the beginning, as well as how she rejected very normal forms of communication. He tried to calm me down by saying that there will always be people like her in the world and that they will always end up flat on their faces and that I just have to let them bounce off of me instead of taking me down with them (good advice, I think). I just kept asking how people could be so inconsiderate and not realize it (his explanation was that she has probably been that way since birth).

I emailed our CA regarding quiet hours and as of today they are 24 hours. I forwarded the email to her and told her we would not hesitate to report her to housing. Jen told me that she had the music on pretty loudly earlier today.

So, here I am at home. I have not gotten to move everything (I just moved clothes today... and not all of them even!) so I will be around this week to monitor her. What gets to me is that this semester I have had many encounters with these sort of irational reasonings that just leave you wondering 'wtf?' It's almost laughable it's so ridiculous...

I am definitely looking forward to next year and having fun with my new roomies and the bestest roomie of all time (Alex!!!!)