I went swimming today for the first time in months. I had intended to join the Master's team here, but I don't do morning practices when I don't have to go to class till ten, and I was busy most lunches with class/meetings, and in the evening, when it was dark out, between frisbee practice, school work and wanting to eat dinner, I decided to skip it. And somehow never made it back in to the pool to swim on my own.
Until today.
It was beautiful, and I think I got a tan! But it was set up as Olympic length and boy am I sore. I was a wimp and only swam half an hour because I had to go to a seminar, but I'm proud of myself for going at all. Hopefully this is starting a trend.
I've been meaning to write a post all week, composing things in my head, but suddenly its Sunday, so you'll have to bear with a list form instead.
- I made it to the top of the climbing wall! Twice! (I love college where I can take a climbing class for gym at 1/10th the price it would be otherwise)
- I am actually caught up with my reading in one class. An engineering class. Its an amazing occurance.
- I'm such a nerd that while we were standing on the Searsville Dam for a class field trip and it started raining and hailing, I pointed out that look, hail floats on the water! Obvious in hindsight, but at the time it looked pretty cool.
- Yesterday was a job fair, where I aquired all the nifty stuff featured above. I think it went really well, and a couple companies sounded really interested. And one of the recruiters gave me some help by telling me additional stuff I should add to my resume to make me stand out. Very cool.
- We had a potluck at my place last night for the people in my program, plus some of the other people we hang out with, and it was tons of fun. Way too much food, but a great turnout. Too bad I had to end the party early since I had to go play
- Broomball! Apparently I'm the only person who ever lived in New England to not hear of this sport, but it was tons of fun. The Berkeley women's ultimate team came down to play with our ultimate team and it was great to get to know them.
Now, off to run some errands before a fun filled afternoon of studying.
Update: Here are the broomball photos!
I seem to have misplaced my Office 2000 disc. I lent it to a friend on the frisbee team, and she definately returned it to me, but I have no recollection of it ever making it out of practice bag.
Normally this wouldn't be such a big deal, but I needed to use Solver for a problem set last night, and even though it is free with Excel, you need to add it in yourself after the regular install. After deciding that scouring the net for a copy of this download or tearing apart my room to find the disc was not a great use of my time, I resigned that I might actually have to wait until I got to a school computer to do that part of the assignment, and so I wandered over to my friend's place for her birthday celebration.
On the way, however, I passed the "dorm" computer cluster. The computer cluster would have Excel!!! With all its add-ins!
One step into the computer cluster and I almost gagged. The overwhelming smell of BO hit me like a truck. I could only manage one minute to confirm they had solver before going to relieve my senses by eating massive amounts of chocolate fondue.
And the smell scared me off so much that I ended up doing the problems using calculus. Yep, it was that bad.
The trip down south to Santa Barbara was great - good company and good music in the car to make the trip go quickly, great weather for the most part, with the exception of some heavy fog on Sunday morning, and some great frisbee.
Saturday didn't start off so well, when I realized that I only had one cleat - somehow I managed to leave a cleat at the fields last week, so I had to run to the nearest sporting goods store to buy new cleats. I ended up buying the same ones I had, but oddly a half size smaller. We were down 2-1 when I left to go to the store, and we hadn't scored again by the time I returned. We ended up losing our first two games 15-1 (Berkeley and UCSC), and our third game we barely lost to UCSB's B team - the time cap went on really early in the game so it was a bit upsetting. But we creamed UCSD's B-team, and played really well on Sunday, so at least we ended on a good note.
Sadly, now I have to play catch up on the work I should have been getting ahead with over the weekend. Only 7 more weeks....
- More photos from the weekend on Flickr
So I've still got the cough, but everything else from my illness seems to have gone away. Which is good because I'm going down to Santa Barbara tomorrow for a frisbee tournament tomorrow and would like to enjoy myself and play well while I'm there. I'm so excited to be playing outdoors in 70 degree weather in January! California rocks.
As for everything else, this week has been rough - problem sets due every day and I didn't do enough work over the weekend to avoid some late nights. It looks like next week won't be as rough, but then again, I probably won't get much work done this weekend either, with the frisbee tournament and all.
Tonight, I realized my number one reason why I love New York - the drug stores are open until midnight! I had to drive past two drug stores, Wal-Mart, and Target before I ended up at Safeway to buy toothpaste and hair elastics. It was 10pm. Grrrr.
Yesterday wasn't such a bad day until it started pouring at the end of frisbee practice. Not that it mattered since we were playing on such a muddy field that we were covered in dirt anyway. But today was the first day since I've been back that it hasn't rained! And the weather doesn't show any more rain for the near future. Hallelujah!
Friday I felt pretty bad. And frankly I thought that was the worst of it. I made it through the day, and when I woke up without having any a pounding headache on Saturday morning, I thought it was a sign things were looking up.
I got up, headed to the REI Members sale (and snagged me a sweet new camping backpack), and felt like going out with the crew into the city would be a good idea. When else was I sure to have a chance to hang out in the city before the workload piled on?
This seemed like a great idea until around 12:30, when I was unable to fully appreciate the very cool latin-funk band at The Elbo Room due to intermittent coughing fits and a raging headache.
The headache was still there when I woke up this morning. It didn't go away all day. The only time I ventured outside today was to get more tissues.
Maybe this is the worst of it. I hope so, because I don't think I can slack off for too much longer.
Greetings from sunny overcast California. The rain has been continuing, making it slightly unpleasant to go to class. I finally had to break down and get a mud flap for my bike so that my rear end didn't keep looking like I'd sat down in a pig sty.
Classes are going well, and they seem much more manageable than last quarter - I actually feel like I have a clue what's going on in them! I'm still taking 16 credits, just like last quarter, but this time my two credit class meets in class only once a week, plus field trips, and has no written assignments, as opposed to last quarter when my two credit class was Matlab, and I had an assignment a week, it met three times a week, and there was a final. That's going to make my life so much easier.
Unfortunately I haven't been able to enjoy the down time at the beginning of the quarter too much because I'm sick as a dog. Its times like these that I wish I could call in sick. Or that my classes were available online. Sadly, neither is true and I have to drag myself out of bed in a couple minutes to go to class. In the rain.
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Time Warner Center
Birds galore on a sculpture behind the courthouse at Chambers St.
Waterlillies on the 2nd floor of MOMA
These are a few other photos I took while wandering around New York City. The flight home was fine, and I spent the better part of an afternoon going through my mail for the past few weeks and going grocery shopping. And jet lag got the best of me (though waking up at 5:30 to get my plane probably didn't help), and rather than go catch up with a friend, I went to bed at 9:30. Hence the getting up at 6am on my own. But at least I won't be late for my first class!
The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co.
Ties from Kimera, the store making my wedding dress!
An odd parking job, Flatbush Ave.
Nice houses on 7th Avenue, Park Slope
Sam and I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm weather the other day to walk around Park Slope. It's amazing how much the neighborhood changes each time I walk around there. We finished New Year's Eve with a lovely dinner at 2nd Street Cafe. And what better way to spend New Year's Day then to shop till you drop for the wedding registry at Macy's.
As on 8:15am tomorrow, I'll be back on a plane to California for another semester of fun.