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January 2007 9: I just went out with some friends for a 21st birthday...that is, Mel's birthday, Kim's sister's birthday. I dunno. For some reason, tonight, I am feeling like shit. No, I'm not talking about the 234782104783104 shots I had tonight...I dunno. I feel like something is wrong in my life. And I don't know what it is, and I don't know how to fix it. I feel like I have a disease for which there is no cure, and eventually, it will overwhelm me and that will be it. I don't know what else to say. I am so tired. October 2006 15: OK, just a little bit of perspective. This updates page/blog is just for me to post my thoughts and feelings, if I decide that I don't mind other people knowing about them. But, next time I post something along the lines of what I posted 5 days ago, it doesn't mean that my life is completely going down the tubes and that I'm going bat-shit crazy. Quite the opposite. I don't go yelling and screaming to anybody, I have just had a lot on my mind lately and yeah, I felt like typing it up. Why I posted it here...I dunno. It's my website after all, I can post whatever I want. But, for those readers out there interested in how I'm doing, I'm doing really well. The school slump has passed, I think, and I'm starting to ace my classes again, though I think the previous month and a half might have damaged me irreparably in terms of my grades. I hope not. We'll see. As for everything else, I'm doing better, I've started learning karate which I've wanted to do for YEARS, and Renae is back from Japan (!!!) which just kicks all kinds of ass. Plus, I got my Bad Mother Fucker wallet that I ordered off of ebay, and some new checks so I can pay rent. Heh! Am I 100%? Nope. But who is? I have a lot going for me, and yes I'm still pissed off about a lot of things. But throughout life a person can ALWAYS find something to be pissed off about. The trick is to keep yourself from getting completely consumed by bitterness and giving up on trying to live a full and happy life. It just takes a lot lot LOT more work at certain times than others. I will probably always be a little bit bitter, but as long as it's within a controllable limit it's all good. But, to sum it up, I'm doing pretty damn good (excuse my bad grammar Kim :). I saw some old pics of myself from earlier in the year, and I forgot what a difference 20 pounds makes. I look damn good now! LOL I think it's time for a shopping trip in the near future...anybody out there want to join? Oh yeah and I think Tattoo Time has finally arrived. Apparently Renae got a tattoo, making me the ONLY ONE out of me/my sisters to not have a tattoo! And I've been the one bitching about getting one for the longest time!!! I gotta figure out what design I want... 11: I just read my previous post. Yeah I am angry, yeah I am bitter. But, goddamnit, I have to add something to what I said. I just had a really good conversation with one of my aerospace friends and I admitted something to her. If my dad's health suddenly deteriorated again...yes, I would find a way to go back to Louisiana to see him and help in any way I could. Yes, I still love those others who stopped giving a shit about me, and no they shouldn't have my love but they have it anyway. And sure, I will yell and scream and cry in the confines of my room, but when I walk out that door, I know who I am. And I am not like dad. I am not going to abandon anybody, whether they deserve it or not. Why is that? Because in spite of genetics and my upbringing, I actually turned out to be a good person. That is all I have to say. 10: Here's a particularly emotional entry. So, if you're not in the mood for me ranting about shit, then maybe you should stop reading now. Ok? No I'm serious. I just cleared my mind into Microsoft Word and now I'm posting it here for all to see. Why? I don't know. I don't really care if you read this and get offended, or angry, or sad, or whatever. I really don't care if Joe Blow Punkass Loser decides to look at my page and read this post and Oh No, I've ruined his day. Well, too bad. Here's my post!! Bitter OK, maybe I�m just messed up, but I find myself very angry and bitter today. I�m very pissed off at the male half of the species, specifically two people but there are others too, but don�t worry if you are one of my few friends here in Austin who is actually reading this then it doesn�t apply to you. Seems like people just want to fuck you and then kick you to the curb. Do I mean that literally or figuratively? Well, you figure it out because I�m not going to say. I just keep thinking about how all my life I�ve had these guys treating me like shit. I mean, what in the FUCK is going on?? I am so goddamn pissed off, why is it that somebody busts their ass at EVERYTHING and genuinely tries to be the best they can be, not just to themselves but to everybody else too, and they just get treated like shit?? Is it a disease that I have, that I�m immune to but I manage to pass along to all the guys that are closer than 10 feet from me? What the fuck�? I remember when my dad was in the hospital, when his cancer was at its worst and we all thought he was going to die. We, all of us in the family, were there at his bedside every freaking day, helping him out, being nice, bringing him flowers, etc, etc, etc. Everyone else in my family said, �Oh he�s going to change, he�s not going to be mean anymore, come on he has CANCER, you can�t be horrible to your family if you�ve got cancer, right?� I remember telling them, You Are So Wrong, He Isn�t Going To Change No Matter How Much You Hope And Pray And Bring Him Flowers And Shit Like That. And I was right. Things didn�t get better. They got WORSE. Here I am, supporting myself COMPLETELY at school, about to fucking run out of money because I got KICKED OUT! And why did I get kicked out?? Fuck, I�m not even going to tell that story. If you want to know, ask me and maybe I�ll tell you. I am just so incredibly pissed off. People sometimes, all the time really, just don�t understand or care to understand, how much power they really have to hurt others. It really is an incredible power. I am just so angry, how people have hurt me, god it is really becoming obvious how much shit I have taken this past year from guys. I just want to beat the hell out of something, I wish I had a punching bag. This past year has been really enlightening. All I have learned is that the people who you think you can depend on are worthless, they take from you, they make promises, they hurt and hurt and hurt and it never fucking stops. And it�s the people you don�t think you need that end up saving you from dropping everything and saying FUCK IT ALL. I mean, what the HELL? Why the hell should they have to save my sorry ass? Isn�t it up to those people who have lied and told me they love me to help me out when the shit hits the fan? Oh wait, it�s the people who say they love me who cause the fucking problems in the first place. What was I thinking?!? In fact, this past year has really gotten me to thinking about the past 22 years and what has happened to me over that time. I think I have been numb for so long, I didn�t realize how screwed up I am from all the crap I�ve been through, but it has been a LOT. Maybe that�s the disease I have, that I�m just screwed up. That I ACTUALLY BELIEVE that it�s possible to LOVE even though you�ve had it hard and other people treat you like shit. Well, fuck this. I�m serious, FUCK IT! All you guys out there--and hell this applies to ladies too�who think you can treat somebody else like crap, let me tell you something, it is going to come back to you one day. I don�t care if you change your ways. Here I was, holding out a secret hope that some of these guys I was talking about would actually get their shit together, but you know what? I DON�T FUCKING CARE ANYMORE. You go waste your life being a dick to the people who love you the most, that�s FINE BY ME. I don�t NEED your shit, I don�t WANT your shit, so you can shove it, ok?? God DAMN it, I am so mad. And you know why I�m mad? It�s because I�m hurt. It�s because I got kicked in the ribs, and oh yeah, It Didn�t Feel Good. And then when I pulled my shirt up to look at my ribs, I saw the wound that I just got, and then I kept looking and I saw all the other ones I forgot I had. At least I can be honest with myself about that. At least I can be truthful and admit that yeah I am not made of steel, that even though you fucking loser guys out there have pretended like Oscar-winng actors to love me and then let me go, I CAN LET GO OF YOU TOO. I don�t expect to see dear ol� dad again in a long, long time. And all you others I don�t expect to see either, and I am just fine with that. I CAN TAKE CARE OF MY OWN GODDAMN SELF, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. 2: So, things have been looking up lately. The past few weeks--actually, the past month�have probably been the hardest in a while. I won�t say they were the hardest, because I know for a fact I have been in much tighter corners with much greater weights on my shoulders. But, about a month and a half ago, I was troubled in a way I had never been before and have been reeling from it ever since. Well, the reeling hasn�t stopped, but it has been slowed significantly. And since my brain and heart went back to the places they should be, I�ve been doing some thinking. It started around the time I was gearing up to go to track nationals. That was an absolute nightmare. I didn�t think I was going to be able to go�the money just wasn�t there. I was so depressed I almost gave up. Finally it came down to a last-minute decision: pay for nationals yourself, Julie, or you don�t get to go. I had a bike thanks to Carl/Leigh at the velodrome in Houston, and my friends were so amazing, they pooled some funds together to help me go. But still, I knew that if I went, I would be broke when I came back. Now I have wanted to go to a cycling national championship for years, especially track nationals. This is my second-to-last year as an undergrad and quite possibly one of my last opportunities to go (hopefully not, but�who knows?). Well, I went for it. And now I�m completely broke. But I�m so much happier now, I had no idea the impact going to collegiate nationals would have on me. I�m not just talking about the actual racing. The racing was good, and I did well, but�there is more. So many people came to my aid when it turned out that I might not be able to go, that I wouldn�t have my own bike to ride, and when family problems cropped up at the worst time, as usual, which just made things harder. When I actually started racing, I wasn�t nervous at all because I was just happy to be there! Going to nationals helped me in other ways too. I didn�t realize it, but I needed to be disconnected for a while. Disconnected from my family, from school, from other people and other problems. Being gone for 4 days allowed me to step back and take a look at my life, and how I was handling many things. A lot of what I saw, I didn�t like. I saw somebody who was very confused, and heartbroken, and listless. But I also saw someone who works hard no matter what, someone who doesn�t flinch when the shit hits the fan. And in a world like this one, that counts for a whole lot. Even though a lot of the time I am still pretty depressed, I don�t feel like there is no end in sight. I got to see myself in a positive light because I was separated from the things that kept my eyes in the dark. I don�t know if that makes any sense�but it�s the best way I can describe it. September 2006 2: Today was a slow day. Both on and off the bike. I think I'm just tired, but who really knows. A 39x12 is a hard gear to handle when you can't shift. Spent most of the day getting ready for NCCA Track Nationals. Looking up plane tickets and stuff. I'm going to have to talk to each of my professors, since I'll be missing at least 2 full days of class. Today I went to Old Navy and bought some pants. Buying pants for me is like pulling teeth. But I didn't have a choice...after digging through my closet I discovered that I've lost so much weight, none of my pants fit me anymore. They are all size 10 or above. So I had to get at least one pair. Along the way I discovered what my new size is: 6...dropped 4 sizes since January. Crazy. Anyways, I thought about it and it turns out I haven't gotten new pants since 3 years ago. 3 years is a loong time to not lose any weight. Ah well, I went ahead and did it, finally. Tomorrow, Sunday. What to do? Katie's party is tomorrow night, that should be fun since we haven't really hung out in a long time. I'm also doing some intervals in the morning. 39x12 again, just trying to get used to that number of gear-inches (88). Probably do 30-second intervals. Maybe some 40's to simulate a 500m TT, I haven't decided yet. 1: Things are slowly getting better. Distractions are a good thing. School seems like it will be a lot of work this semester (18 hours...yeah), but not too hard technically. I think that is the trick: if you take tons of hours, make sure they're not too mentally-challenging. Anyways, if you are interested in seeing my class schedule, take a look at the Miscellaneous Page. I've decided to try to be a little more upbeat about things. Not that I actually feel upbeat, not at all. But I discovered last night at the Beastie Boys Sing-Along that if I can fake having a good time for a little while, I can actually end up having a geniunely good time. So maybe if I fake it for long enough, things will begin to look up. I dunno. Gonna wake up at 7am to go do some track sprint practice. I got up to 54kph on Tuesday, which was great. Thursday's sprints were a little slower, but I had a head-wind to fight so I only got up to 52. That's ok. Ever see the movie �The Lion King�? Of course you have. Everybody has. I was just thinking of that phrase they use in the movie. The Circle of Life. Renae once told me something about college. How, when you start college, you are a certain person, with certain habits and goals and personality traits. College is one of the most formative and unpredictable times in a person�s life. As you go through college, you lose yourself (this is what Renae told me) and morph into somebody very different than the freshman you used to be. Then, in some odd way, at the end of your four years, you end up returning to that old self�wiser, more experienced, yet the same as you were initially. The same, but more. When she told me this, it was my freshman year and I was really confused by what she said. Now, I�m beginning the 5th year of my undergrad. I�m grad-student age, even though I have two more years before I complete both of my majors. But, looking back over the past four years, I see exactly what she was saying about life. When I began college, I was so determined to succeed. I saw a wonderful future for myself, one in which I was free to live and love and experience anything with no regrets. Somewhere along the way I lost that vision. I turned into�well, I don�t know what/who I turned into, but it wasn�t the person I wanted to be. It�s like I said in an earlier post: I lost some confidence, some motivation. Now that vision is coming back to me. It�s very different than it was before. My ultimate goal of being an astronaut still remains, but now I know my path to achieving that is going to be completely different than the one I used to have. Different, but so much better. I really don�t agree with the phrase, �The Circle of Life.� I think life has circular qualities, in that you repeat certain phases of life, like Renae�s story about returning to the person you were at the beginning of undergrad. But you never return to exactly the same place. You always carry experiences with you, whether they are positive or negative, as you travel through the different phases of life. So, instead of a circle, I think life is more like a helix. Why does it matter that life is more like a helix than a circle? It doesn�t. In the end, nobody is really going to care. But I thought it was an interesting observation. God, I love the music of Vanessa Mae. Her album, Subject to Change, is so beautiful. I can't get enough of it. It is really perfect for my frame of mind right now. You should listen to it if you get the chance. August 2006 25: Well, it seems that I haven�t updated my website in a while. Someone specifically asked me to write something, so here goes. I don�t really know what to write actually (which is, of course, why I haven�t written anything). Most of the time I like to write positive things because I know other people might see/read my posts, and if there�s a way for me to make them feel a little better about their own lives/situations, then I�d like to do so. I guess the reason why I haven�t written anything is because I don�t have anything positive to say. Nothing has happened that is good in the past week, except for my move to Austin. I swear Houston was going to kill me, I�m so glad I got the hell out of there when I did. A lot of other things have happened, none of them good. For me (and I apologize in advance, I don�t normally whine about personal problems, but hey you asked me to write something so too bad for you)�for me, bad things always happen in threes. I�m not sure what number three is yet, but I�m 100% sure what numbers one and two are. I guess if you look at things in chronological order, number one would be me taking an emotional nosedive. Number two is just the usual family stuff. Forgive me for not giving the details of both problems, I�ve already told the 2-3 people who I�m going to tell. Actually I haven�t even told anyone about problem number two, but then again I never do. That is the kind of problem not many people understand. Problem number one, though�well, that is one that happens to everyone, unfortunately. Both one and two stem from the same dilemma, actually. And that is that you can�t change people. You can try and try, goodness knows my Mom has tried for 30+ years to make my Dad change, but sometimes you just have to let a person be. My friend Katie has an amazing quote on her myspace profile that sums it up: "That's what real love amounts to -- letting a person be what he really is." (Jim Morrison). I guess the gist of it is, you can talk to and try to support somebody as much as you can, but really, if you genuinely care about them, you have to let them choose what they will, even if it is frustrating and heartbreaking to watch. And once that person makes their choice, it is up to you to decide whether you are going to stand by them or not. This is in spite of whether you agree with what they�re doing or your own personal desires for that person. OK, I am going to try to make this end on a positive note for those of you who are actually spending your time reading this. Like I said before, you can�t change other people. But if there is one thing in this world that people can change, it is themselves. Each and every one of us is amazing and beautiful in his/her own way. Even if we find ourselves in bad situations or are unhappy with our circumstances/location/lifestyle, we all have the power to change things for the better. Whether it involves an action on our part, or simply a change in our outlook on life, it is always, always possible to improve. No, it�s not possible to change other people�but if you are trying to change yourself for the better, there are going to be people out there willing to help you, if you let them. This is a lesson I learned personally not too long ago. Just remember, you only get one life. Don�t spend it being frustrated. 5: Just finished cleaning out my car. Autobuyers Texas is going to give me $350 for it, which is about what I was expecting. I thought I would be sad to see my pretty car go, but for some reason I don't really care. A car is a car after all. I guess if I had been driving it all this time, I would feel differently. I went on a ride this morning and had a moment of thoughtfulness that I wrote about and posted here on my website (under "What I Think") and also as a blog on myspace. I don't know why I wrote it, I don't usually get sentimental like that (OK, maybe I do..) but today was a different-feeling day for some reason. I bought 7 health bars from HEB today. Apparently it's tax-free weekend, though I don't see why it's so special since I will probably end up saving a dollar or two at the very most. Yesterday I had plans to go to the Miller outdoor theater in downtown Houston to watch Shakespeare's The Tempest. The plan was to go with my coworkers Angie and Ethan. Well, Angie and Ethan both brought their significant others, so I was pretty much the fifth wheel. Imagine two couples sitting on a blanket outside enjoying a play, and another person sitting behind them curled in a ball, falling asleep from a combination of boredom and isolation. Not that I didn't have a good time hanging out, it was fun...I just felt very much like the odd one out. Not a good feeling at all. 2: Well today was sort of eventful. I finished soldering/building both of my ultraviolet LED arrays, and they look nice, though I think I probably gave myself cancer while testing the circuitry for them. Whoops. I ran an experiment to see if the setup works, I'll get results on Friday when the bacteria have had a chance to grow in the Petri dishes. What else happened today? Not much. Blake, one of my old co-workers from Astronaut Training, got his final certification to be an astronaut trainer (which takes about a year to complete), so a bunch of folks went out tonight to celebrate. Of course, I ate too much. I need to stop eating out, it's too expensive and not healthy. I guess training 2-3 hours daily gives me a little more leeway but I still feel stuffed. I don't understand something, it's just a little bit annoying. It has to do with my interactions with multiple people during this past week. Really, they aren't anything big by themselves, but I guess because they both happened in the same week it makes me wonder. What I'm confused about is this: why in the world does a guy chase after a lady if he knows she is off the market? This makes no sense to me. It happened twice this week. I swear my first instinct was to grab said guys by the hair and shake them, yelling "What the hell is wrong with you??" To me it is a blatant lack of respect and shows how little they value the personal relationships of the other person. I just don't get it, and it is frustrating. Anyways, I'm not going to dwell on it. Instead I'm going to waddle over to bed and try to get some sleep. There's much to be done tomorrow! 6x500m repeats, an upper-body workout in the gym, some calcite analysis on the light microscope, and my engineering group's Annual Chili Cookoff (which I half-organized this year). Wee! July 2006 30: Saturday Katie had her 22nd birthday party at my future home on Banton Rd. It was a pirates and ninjas costume party, and though I wanted to be a ninja, I only had the clothes to be a pirate. But, I made a pretty damned good pirate if I may say so myself. Isaac was doped up on Benadryl on the way back, so I drove the whole time which was awesome because I hadn't driven in forever. After Isaac and I got back today I went cycling and had a big success in my 200m and and 500m intervals. I was able to hit one of my goals of 50kph (31mph)! This was something I only did once last year, and probably because of a tailwind at that. This time I did it 4 times in the 200m and once in the 500m (my workout was 6x200 and 2x500). Anyway, I'm stoked and I'm hoping to see much more improvement by the time September comes around. Tracy had some things come up and I'm hoping she is able to recover. Things were going great between her and Zane and then he went off the deep end (I'm not going to post the details here) and it was over between them. So, I've invited Tracy to come down to Houston again so I can help her take her mind off of her worthless ex. Tracy, if you read this, you were too good for him and he didn't appreciate how gorgeous you are, you are better off without him! That is the truth too. My first order of business tomorrow is to get the ball rolling on my "package" that I'm getting in the "mail" for certain "people." No more details than this, not right now at least. 'nite! 22: Went out to Korean BBQ the 20th, had an entire grilled mackerel, along with yummy veggies and lots of water (I had just gone riding, I was thirsty :). It was a really good time. Today (well technically, yesterday the 21st) I got to work at 7am and did some work in the microbiology lab. Then I went to listen to moonwalker Jack Schmitt (the only geologist who's been to the Moon) talk about the Apollo program. After that, Angie (my office-mate) and I went to have lunch with the chemists, Nik and Chris. It was a lot of fun, we had Mexican food for lunch, and I had alcoholic beverages for the first time in a long time (a Corona light and a margarita). Then we walked around the Boardwalk in Kemah (on the waterfront next to Clear Lake) and finally went on a boat ride on the lake. I got absolutely drenched, but it was a good thing because it was insanely hot outside. Then Angie and I went to the store to buy stuff for Antja's game night which started at 7pm. Game night was a lot of fun, it was around 13 NASA folks (a lot of them recent UT alums that I know). We played 2 games of Mafia, which I had never played before. For those of you who are familiar with the rules, for the first game I was one of the Mafia (and I was the 3rd last to get whacked) and for the second game I was the police--and I survived the entire game! I was proud. After that we played Taboo, and I kicked serious butt (my team got 7 points on one of my turns). We ended up winning 51 to 38. After that, Angie and her boyfriend John decided to call it a night, so since Angie was my ride (and I was pretty tired too) I left as well. Now it's 12:45 in the morning (or night I guess) and I should be in bed since I'm getting up early to ride/lift weights tomorrow. Good times! :) 19: Why do I always do these silly surveys? I don't know. TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey Name: Julie Mitchell Birthday: June 7, 1984 Birthplace: Shreveport, LA Current Location: Houston, TX Eye Color: Dark brown Hair Color: Dark brown Height: 5'6" Right Handed or Left Handed: mostly right-handed Your Heritage: half-Honduran, half-white The Shoes You Wore Today: Nike running shoes Your Weakness: Food Your Fears: Roaches Your Perfect Pizza: One that never ends Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year: Get on the podium at track nationals, pull my GPA up to a 3.8 Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger: "haha" Thoughts First Waking Up: "Why is it still dark outside??" Your Best Physical Feature: My legs/bum Your Bedtime: Around 10:30-11pm these days Your Most Missed Memory: Hanging out with people I'm not close to (physically) anymore (four in particular) Pepsi or Coke: Coke, unless it's Wild Cherry Pepsi MacDonalds or Burger King: Chik-Fil-A! Single or Group Dates: Single Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: Powdered green tea Chocolate or Vanilla: Chocolate Cappuccino or Coffee: neither (frappuccino I guess) Do you Smoke: No Do you Swear: Sometimes Do you Sing: Only when I'm alone Do you Shower Daily: yes Have you Been in Love: yes Do you want to go to College: I'm in college so I guess that's a yes. Do you want to get Married: Doesn't matter, as long as I'm with the one I love. Do you belive in yourself: Most of the time. Do you get Motion Sickness: No. Do you think you are Attractive: Sometimes. Are you a Health Freak: Most of the time. Do you get along with your Parents: Dad: never. Mom: most of the time. Do you like Thunderstorms: Yeah, they are awesome. Do you play an Instrument: Yeah, the Air Guitar! In the past month have you Drank Alcohol: No (wow, this is startling...) In the past month have you Smoked: No. In the past month have you been on Drugs: No. In the past month have you gone on a Date: Nope. In the past month have you gone to a Mall: Yes, several times. In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos: No, but I had one of those 100-calorie packs today. In the past month have you eaten Sushi: Yes, and it was taaasty. In the past month have you been on Stage: No. In the past month have you been Dumped: No. In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping: Nope. But, my top slipped the wrong way at the beach and showed a bit too much, does that count? In the past month have you Stolen Anything: Nope. Ever been Drunk: Yes, about 2 months ago. Ever been called a Tease: Yeah.. Ever been Beaten up: Yes. Ever Shoplifted: How do you want to Die: In space...something cool, like crashing into the Moon. What do you want to be when you Grow Up: An astronaut. What country would you most like to Visit: Japan. In a Boy/Girl.. Favourite Eye Color: Brown. Favourite Hair Color: Something dark...black or brown. Short or Long Hair: Depends on the guy....but, long. Weight: Lean body type, like a cyclist or swimmer. Best Clothing Style: Relaxed, nothing too fancy. Number of Drugs I have taken: None, other than prescription drugs (those can get you pretty messed up though... Number of Piercings: Two (ears). Number of Tattoos: None. Number of things in my Past I Regret: Nothing major...so far I think I've done all right. CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS! 16: Well I haven't written anything in a while...I worked almost 50 hours this past week. Yeah and I'm working tomorrow too, though it's just some stuff here on my computer and not on-site at JSC. Tracy came over on Thursday and we've been hanging out. We went to see Click with Isaac on Friday and it was ok, funny at times but a little too serious towards the end. Today I woke up at 7am and went riding, did 6 200m sprints and 3 500m practice TT's. I still can't seem to get my cadence up. I don't get it. After my ride I took a shower and Tracy and I went to Galveston. We spent maybe half an hour taking silly pics of each other (the results will be on thefacebook and myspace very soon) and then we laid around for a while. I got a big sun burn, which sucks. Then we played in the ocean water a little bit, Tracy was being a big pansy and didn't want to go out very far. Now if there's anything I'm a pansy about, it's deep water, and if I'm calling Tracy a pansy then that's pretty bad. After the beach we came back and ordered a pizza (and quickly ate it). Then we went to get ice cream and came back and watched 4 episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Tracy is officially addicted to that show, ha! It's a good show. Well gotta get some rest. Tomorrow is a busy day. I may leave work early on Monday because I'm tired of working late. Leaving early would be the sheeit, then I could have plenty of time to make up for the exercising I missed on Thursday. We'll see. 9: A very relaxing weekend. Thursday night I went to see Superman with Isaac, Friday I ended up leaving work late because of...well, work. Saturday I woke up around 9 (early for me) and rode for about 2.5 hours--did some 500m repeats (53x19 gearing, for those of you out there who care), though my legs were dead from weights the day before and I couldn't get my cadence up at all. What else? Not much really. I was planning to go in to work today, but the weather nixed that. Last night I heard some loud Booms coming from JSC, rode over to see what it was and all I saw was a spread-out cloud of smoke hanging over the whole center. Didn't hear sirens or anything so I guess it wasn't serious. I've witnessed an entire building engulfed in flames at JSC so I guess it's business as usual??? Beats me. I'll find out tomorrow when I get to work. (at 6am..) Just relaxing right now. Wondering what the hell is going on with my suddenly-crappy wireless internet. Cleaned my bike earlier, now it's nice and shiny. Watched some Battlestar Galactica (season one, the episode where Starbuck gets stranded on a moon and flies out on a Cylon raider), ate some hot dog wieners wrapped in a wheat tortilla with honey. Yeah, I'm a weirdo, but don't knock it till you've tried it. Hot dogs with honey are the sheeeeeit. Anyways, I'm gonna stop being boring, and start being bored. Take care folks. 7: Well I've been busy. The 4th was fun, I went out to eat with some friends (Nancy, Jisun, and Tama-o) at this place called Le Madelene, a French place. I got pesto pasta and a slice of chocolate cake. It was taaasty. After that we went to the mall and shopped for three hours. This time I actually bought some stuff...a skirt, a cardigan, some pants, and some workout shorts. All in all, a very productive day. Oh and I got a new purse too, it's leather. Didn't think the day would ever come where I defined my activities in terms of clothes. Ah well. Since then I've just been busting my butt at work. Lots of working late, experiments, tabulating data, pouring agar into Petri dishes, making buffer, etc, etc, etc. It's fun but a little bit stressful. Stressful not because of the workload (which is peanuts compared to school) but because I get to work at 7am in the morning to get shit done and leave early...but instead I end up staying late and working more! I have workouts to do, thank you very much. And I don't want to have to ride my bike back to my place in the dark, so I gots to get everything done before nightfall. Aarrggh. Oh well. I'm getting everything done. Barely. 3: My myspace.com horoscope for today...it's a good one: You are caught in a web of your own thoughts now, but common sense will prevail even if you are still unsure of your next step. You may not realize how committed you are to a particular idea, but it becomes apparent as you talk with others that you really do have a sound plan. Trust your judgment today, for your instincts will not lead you astray. Well......DUH! You Should Learn Japanese You're cutting edge, and you are ready to delve into wacky Japanese culture. From Engrish to eating contests, you're born to be a crazy gaijin. Saiko! What Language Should You Learn? Guess I picked the right screen name.... You Are Wind Strong and overpowering A force to be reckoned with, no one dares cross you You have the power to change everything around you You are best known for: your wrath Your dominant state: commanding What Type of Weather Are You? 2: Just hanging out with Adriana. We went shopping yesterday, except I did what I always do. I found 20 outfits (ok more like 5), told myself 'Yeah, these are awesome, but I don't want to impulse-buy so I'll leave them here and come back and maybe get one or two of them in a few minutes.' Well, in a few minutes I manage to talk myself out of getting any of them. So I ended up buying a book that my Korean friend Jisun recommended to me when we went to Korean BBQ earlier that day. Oh yeah Korean BBQ. We (Adriana, Neva, Jisun, Nancy and myself) had Samtaetang, which is a soup with a whole chicken, green onions, sticky rice, and a big stick of ginseng root in it. It was really good. Then we went and got ice cream and I had a cone with a scoop of girl-scout-cookie and a scoop of Snickers-flavored ice cream. After that we went to NASA to watch the launch. Of course it got scrubbed. And then followed with shopping. Then we went out to downtown Houston. I dressed up in my hot black cocktail dress and put on eye makeup (which I only do maybe twice a year), yeah I looked good I will post pics on myspace/thefacebook laters. Anyway I went downtown with Amara and Adriana, and we went to a few clubs and then decided to ride the full route of the Houston light rail. It was hilarious, every bum that got on the train came over and sat next to us!!! 'Hey ladies, what yall up to?...' There was one bum with a bucket full of who-knows-what, he was so creepy! Ah well. Good times. Got up at noon today. Didn't ride because of bad weather. The launch got scrubbed again, dammit. Oh well. We'll see how it goes on July 4th. That would be awesome if we launched on the 4th. Anyways. I got two new pairs of workout shorts and an umbrella from Target. Got a drive to the store today and stocked up on stuff so that I don't have to walk back and forth all the time for a while...I spent $70 on groceries!! I never spend more than $40 at a time, so I got a lot of stuff. A friend from Texas A&M, Scott, is coming over and we're going to hang out. Probably go play pool or something. Man, I could get used to these 4-day weekends! Sleeping in tomorrow is going to feel goooood! I'm enjoying NASA. Starting to get the ol' gung-ho-ism back again. With the right work, I think I could really enjoy working there. Maybe there's a place for a geologist-aerospace engineer? Ha. Probably not. I still hate the 8 to 5 routine though. :-/ June 2006 29: Had a big breakthrough at work today. I think I've finalized the design for the water disinfection device, which is so amazing because I wasn't expecting to make this kind of progress this early. It was one of those lightbulb moments. I saw a small test tube (the kind that are about the diameter of a finger) and it just clicked. Instead of disinfecting one big tube of water, split the water up into lots of little fullerene-coated tubes!! That way there is redundancy in the system in case a tube breaks, the lighting can be separate from the tube which makes repairs a snap (whenever a light burns out), and smaller tubes have more surface area per unit volume, making for a more efficient disinfection system!! Of COURSE! Anyways, I drew up some schematics today and once the proof-of-concept tests are done (hopefully in a week or two), I'll start building a preliminary device! I'm excited, sorry if I'm boring you readers out there, but hey this is what engineering is all about and these Aha moments don't come very often! I skipped my 500m repeats today. Instead I did an hour of upper-body work at the gym followed by an hour easy ride. After the gym I just didn't have the energy for repeats. I was so fatigued, I think perhaps my schedule of weight lifting might be a little too accelerated. I'm going to take the weekend off of the weights and let my muscles recoup. Lunch with the chemists was postponed, turns out one of them is doing a sleep test and isn't allowed to drink 24 hours prior (haha good luck Chris :). So, I'm trading lunch with the guys for lunch with the ladies. Six or so ladies from the office invited me to lunch so I'm going with them tomorrow. And Adriana gets into town tomorrow evening, we've got some working-out and going-out scheduled which should be fun. 27: I just got tired all of a sudden. Probably because I ate dinner after not eating for a while. I bought a cinnamon bun and immediately regretted it, so now it's sitting (wrapped up) on my desk at work, waiting for me! Work is picking up a little bit. I'm going out for drinks with a couple of the chemists this Friday. Should be fun. Especially since we are going in the middle of the day, ha! They should be fun to hang out with, though. This weekend is going to be big. First, there's the Shuttle launch, which is a big deal by itself. But also, my good friend Adriana is coming up from Laredo for the weekend, and we're going to go shopping. Then, on Monday (which I'm taking off from work because it's between two holidays) I'm going shopping AGAIN with Jisun and Nancy, two of the science folk from the astrobiology group. I can't wait to go shopping, I know I'm being a silly girl for saying so, but I really want some new skirts! :) But don't think I'm taking it easy all the time. Today I went to the gym right after work and followed that up with a 20-minute ride home and followed THAT with an hour and a half sprint ride behind JSC. I barely made it back before dark. I'm also getting up at 6am tomorrow so Letty (the microbiologist I've been working with quite a bit) and I can run the Nanostructured Disinfection device experiment one more time. Our pre-agar-filled petri dishes came in today (yay!) which will expedite things for us quite a bit, now that we don't have to pour our own plates. 25: Today all I did was watch My Sassy Girl (again) and ride my bike. Oh yeah and I cooked some edamame and extra-lean beef patties to eat during the week. Anyway, today was my make-up ride for the 2 workouts I missed earlier in the week because of rain. So I did 4 hours of sprinting this weekend. My legs are sore. And I'm off to the gym tomorrow, heh! Call me crazy but this is a good excuse to eat more meat. Too bad I'm missing the cook-out in Austin. I would be bringing a lot of meat too. :-/ Have to get up at 6am tomorrow because we're running another experiment. This one should run much more smoothly now that I actually know what I'm doing, haha. 24: Finished my model of Atsuchi castle today! Check out the neat pics! 21: Damn, I'm hungry all the time. I just ate two peanut butter sandwiches, I'm not kidding, and my stomach is grumbling AGAIN. It could be that I had an early lunch, but I didn't (I ate at 1pm), or it could be riding back and forth to work (which gets me an extra 30 minutes on the bike per day), lifting weights after work for an hour, and then going riding for 2 more hours after that. LAWD I'M TIRED. Oh but it's such a good feeling. Spent today over in building 31 at JSC, working with the astrobiology folks. Doing more calcite crystal analysis. Check out my profile on myspace.com to see an old pic of me at the light microscope. Anyways, I got through 80% of my light analysis work which was pretty cool. I'll get to the scanning electron microscope stuff tomorrow, once I finish the last 20% of the light work and get the samples carbon-coated. Yay! Not too much else going on. I ran my first UV/fullerene bacteria-killing experiment Tuesday, it took the whole day, and tomorrow I get to count the sample plates to see how well the disinfection worked. I hope it worked really well, I'm excited to see how a plot of the results turns out!! 18: It is that time. Time to get really focused on cycling. Now I am 100% sure that I have bounced back from finals (in terms of my fitness). I have my training schedule set up from now until late October, and it is pretty much a repeat of last year except everything's a little harder. Right now my big goal is to put on some muscle mass and gain power/strength. This past semester, even though I lost 15+ pounds (which is great, my abs are starting to show these days), I lost some muscle/strength too, which is bad. My spinning abilities are fine (thanks in part to the hours I spent in Georgia going up and down mountains) so it's just a matter of translating that spinning into a powerful spin that I can maintain for 10-45 seconds. Anyway, in order to gain the muscle mass I need, I am going to have to complement my weight workouts with a high-protein diet. I'm going to start (well, re-start) the famed Russ Walker diet strategy. That is, eliminate simple sugars (except Coke, of course, because Coke is Life) and add meat to my diet. Specifically, Extra Lean Ground Beef, cooked thoroughly and mixed with spaghetti sauce. Yes this will be a meal for me once a day (probably dinner). Mmmm, meat! I'm a carnivore you know. In the mornings, since I'm out of protein powder (that stuff is just too expensive) I'm going to drink an Instant Breakfast, which has lots of vitamins and junk that is good for me. I haven't decided on what to eat for lunch yet. Might go for peanut butter on wheat bread with an apple or kiwi. Snack foods are TBD. Gotta be sure I don't go to the NASA cafeteria and get those damned three-for-a-dollar cookies. Oh, they are so soft and tasty! Once my car gets fixed I'm going to take an evening each month and go out to the Alkek velodrome. This will be to check on the progress of my fitness and work on my track-riding technique. That is probably my biggest deficit at this point because I don't live close to a track, nor do I own a track bike on which to practice. My goal is to get a sub-13-second time before (or at) collegiate nationals. Yeah, it's a lot to ask, but I think I can do it. Last year I went from 17 seconds to 13 seconds from June to October. This year I am starting out at 15:30 (and that was in a 48x16!), so hopefully I can make similar gains as last year in terms of time. We'll see! Yay kittens! 16: Will and Kim visited this evening. We went out to eat and...went out to eat again. heh. Mexican food and ice cream. I'm stuffed! Houston is boring (can you tell by how many blog posts I've made?). I like Austin much better. Work is slow, it's supposed to pick up next week, but I don't know how much. Hopefully a lot. I like what I'm doing, but I just keep having to wait on stuff. Wait to learn microbiology techniques before I can experiment. Wait for bugs to grow before I can learn microbiology techniques. Wait to get "certified" (ha) to use a soldering iron before I can build a prototype of my UV LED array. Wait for parts to arrive before I can build the actual UV LED array. Wait for, wait for, wait for... If I have to wait for the Shuttle to launch after July I'm going to quit NASA. OK, maybe not. Need to go cycling tomorrow. And to the gym. My muscle memory has finally kicked in, and I went from lifting around 230 lbs on the leg press to 300 the other day. Going up 70 pounds in a day probably isn't good for my knees, but 300 was so easy! I wanted to add more weight. But that will have to wait I suppose. Damn, the mosquitoes here are ridiculous. Kim and Will, if you escape unbitten, you are getting capped. Will, you are getting capped anyway. Ha! Is it raining outside again? Lemme go check. 13: Calm down, Julie! 12: So as I lay tossing and turning in bed tonight, I came to a realization. I don't know exactly what that realization is, but it's something along the lines of needing to stand up for myself. I have been too lax lately. Too many bad things have happened, family problems, money problems, personal problems. I need to just take care of this shit. For instance, my car has been broken for weeks. This is actually a very metaphorical situation now that I think about it. Anyway, my car has been dead for weeks. I have been 'meaning to' get it fixed, but of course I've been broke and can't fix it. Well, I'm no genius, but I know a few things about cars, so why not fix it myself? I got some money on my birthday (but not FOR my birthday) so why not buy the damn spark plugs, install them myself, and be done with it. I can have my nice pretty car all fixed up and ready to drive around. But, I've been putting it off. Need to stop putting things off that I need to do. 11: Finally, I have the internet on my PC! Yay! Thanks to Kim for sending the wireless antenna to me. Overall, I had a good time in Austin this past weekend. Hanging out with "the folks" was a lot of fun. I really miss Austin, and I haven't even been away for a month yet. Feels like time has gone by very slowly since I left, like it will be forever before I get to come back. Went cycling after I got back to Houston. I rode for an hour and a half. It was scorching outside, I was originally planning to do 2 hours, but it was just too hot. I am too sensitive to temperature extremes I think. Ah well. Anyway, after my ride I dumped a ton of pictures I've accumulated from my harddrive/email onto my thefacebook.com account. Now I have some lovely galleries of all of my pictures (well, most of them). Not everybody is tagged in the pictures yet, but I'll get around to that eventually. Seems like I have been wasting a lot of time lately worrying about stupid things. I'm just going to enjoy myself. This is my last summer in Houston, after all. 10: My car is still dead. Been riding to work and back, plus workouts. This makes me very hungry. Now I'm in Austin, drinking punch, enjoying good company (well I was until I came over to the computer), scanning pics from my trip to Georgia/Colorado. I ate more today than I've eaten in a while. Ohhh, so good! Five dollar oreo shakes from the Alamo Drafthouse! Yum! We saw "The Breakup," with Vince Vaughan and Jennifer Anniston...it was ok. A very frustrating and kind of depressing movie to watch. But it had some funny moments. I'm very picky about my comedy. I mean, if it can't stand up to Zoolander and Pootie Tang, then it sucks! (ok maybe not but oh well...) 7: Back at the library again. So, today is my birthday! I'm 22 years old. Yay. I started the day with...uhmm....a bike ride to work, since my car is (still) dead. And, the work day was...uhmm...the same as usual. Oh, but it gets much better. My Mom called me and told me that a money order was in the mail for me, that I should get it today (but not for my birthday, since my Mom doesn't celebrate birthdays), and that I can cash it and (theoretically) get my car fixed. Anyways I rode home early today, ran to the first bank I could think of, and tried to cash the money order. They wouldn't do it. Apparently the money order has to be from one of their banks or an associate of theirs, and the money order my Mom sent me is from Albertson's (which isn't around this area at ALL) so that didn't work. Next I went to H.E.B. to try to get the money order from them. Sure, we can cash it for you, the guy says. I just need to see some ID. I pull out my ID. Oh, sorry, you have to have a TEXAS ID (I have a Louisiana driver's license). Here's your money order back. But wait. I have a University of Texas student ID! Nah, we need to see something else too. Well...uhm....(digging through my bag...) oh, here's my NASA ID! No, that's not gonna work either...well, let me call my manager. Yeah, ok, three IDs, all with a name and photo on them...ok, we'll give you the money. Finally! Anyway, they charged me 2.50 (a 1% fee) to get the money order (whatever, I just need the MONEY right NOW). As soon as I left the H.E.B. I decided to finally celebrate my birthday. I went straight to a nearby ice cream shop and got a peanut butter and chocolate scoop on a waffle cone and ate it on my way to the library. As I walked in, eating my yummy ice cream, little kids flocked to me shouting, "oooh, I want some ice cream!" and I batted them away. YOU CAN'T HAVE ANY, FOOL KIDS! Well, that's my birthday. Aren't you jealous? Now it's time for me to go cycling. I think I'm gonna walk to a nearby restaurant and get something unhealthy for dinner. 5: So is it better to know the future by forcing it to be what you think you want, or not know, wait, and let it unfold for you and perhaps be pleasantly (or badly) surprised? I don't know the answer to that. So far, I've done lots of forcing the future and none of the letting-unfolding. I think that has been good for me, given my circumstances...if I hadn't forced things to turn out the way they are, I would probably be rotting away working some shitty job in Shreveport waiting to get sick or murdered by somebody. It's funny, I have to give a presentation to some NASA brass about myself. It's just to reinforce to them that I'm not some worthless punk who isn't worth the money they're paying me. One of the parts of the presentation that I'm supposed to have is a slide on my future plans. I laugh about this because I've given a LOT of presentations in my day, and NONE of them have had the same content on this slide from one presentation to the next. Should I be worried about this or not? I've worked hard to dig myself out of the hole I was born into, but perhaps now is the time to try to sit back and let things happen as they may. If only I knew what that meant. 3: June already! Well, sorry I've been out of touch to those of you I should've called by now but haven't, or those of you I've called and been dead talking to. This 8 to 5 stuff is just killer. Anyways, work is going well, I have a lot to do. Got into an argument with one of the astrobiology scientists already (yeah, a GREAT way to start my summer!) but he can go you-know-what himself for all I care. Right now, my plans are to eat something, maybe ride my bike if I feel up to it, and then eat something else. I haven't had anything to eat today yet. Really though, I'm just waiting for that first paycheck on Friday. My car is dead so I've been riding/walking everywhere and while it has been great at re-charging my tattered fitness, it hasn't been so great in terms of saving time and energy. Ah well. I doing my part to help the environment I guess! OK well I'm at the library right now, and there's a guy sitting across from me who is very creepy looking and he keeps staring at me....so...I'm gonna go. Take care folks! May 2006 15: Well, the biology final just ended. It went fine. I'm sure I got an A in that class. Now I'm just sitting in the aerospace engineering computer lab, waiting until 5pm when I'm going to talk to my professor about salvaging my Structural Analysis grade. He seems sympathetic which is good, haha. This may be my last update for a while. Tonight I study for my last final, which is tomorrow morning from 9-12am (and it WILL take the ENTIRE 3 hours I'm sure!!) and pack stuff up for my big move. I'll be moving to Houston just as soon as everything gets shoved in my car. Man, I am not looking forward to trying to fit all that crap in my car.... Anyways, I'm going to haul the ol' computer over to Houston but I don't even remember if the lady I'm living with has the internet or not. I think she does, but it might be dial-up or passenger pigeons or something awful-slow like that, so I will likely be under the radar for a while. Plus I'll be out of town until the 27th. Have a good one folks (whoever you are out there reading this boring crap I post all the time)... 14: Holy shit!!! I have a final tomorrow!! Where's the caffiene??? 13: So it turns out that the final I thought I had in the morning was actually at 2pm in the afternoon....whoops! Oh well, I got more time to study which was good. After my final I came back to the apartment, took a short 4-hour nap, and then started packing things up for my big move on Tuesday. I didn't realize I had accumulated so much stuff while I was in Austin. Mostly textbooks, notebooks, packages and the like. I just wonder whether I'll actually be able to fit all of it in my car. It will be a tight squeeze for sure. Not much going on besides that. Tomorrow should be a little more relaxing...I have the weekend to study for my biology and structural analysis finals, and biology is going to be a joke. I would have to fuck up pretty bad on the final to end up with a B in that class. Struc-A is a different story. My performance in that class is probably the worst of any class I've ever taken. It's really worrisome actually, because I study more for that class than any of the others. I don't know. The final will be the deciding factor. Anyway, enough bitching. I need to keep packing. 12: Another late night...or should I say early morning? It's 5:30am right now and I'm in the middle of studying for my Linear Systems Analysis final. Well, not really in the *middle* of studying, I've pretty much covered everything I need to know. But since my exam is at 9am, I think I've pretty much gone past the point where sleep will help my cognative abilities. If I slept right now I would just make myself groggy. So, I've just got to make it until noon, when the exam (theoretically) ends. Now where did I put my coke...? Is there anyone out there who actually reads these posts? 11: Everybody's asleep. I have a Propulsion final in 6 and 3/4 hours, which means 6 and 3/4 hours left to study (no sleeping tonight!). I kind of like the peace and quiet. I think the dose of caffeine I've had tonight has made me hyperaware of things. It's kind of neat, in a chemically-induced way. I have to fast until after my test tomorrow because I'm getting my cholesterol checked. I have to go 12 hours without food. The fast started at midnight. I question whether I will make it or not....if I start to starve, I will eat whatever's around, and my cholesterol can go to hell. Anyway, that's about it. Multi-stage turbine analysis awaits. 9: I've decided that I will stay in shape during finals this year by riding my bike back and forth to campus. That way, not only do I maintain my tattered fitness, but I also save gas which means saved money. I've also been studying for my Propulsion final that I have on Thursday. Rocket science is hard. I hope I don't bomb the test. Have to wake up early for a doctor's appointment. Not sure what to feel worse about, the waking up early or the fact that I have to go to the doctor. Ah well, so it goes. 8: I feel like I shrank in the past few hours. So weird. Well, I've been studying for finals, went to the Le Montreaux club room and cooped myself up in the back corner. It was hard to concentrate because there was some lady working out in the fitness room (right next door) and she had Jerry Springer on SO LOUD it was hard to hear myself think! All I could hear was "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" AHHHH!!! I'm about to go to campus to talk to a few folks about reviving my C-9 project. Hopefully we can come up with some good ideas and be able to fly in 2008, that would be awesome! I'm riding my bike to campus because my car's almost out of gas and I'm almost out of money....I don't mind riding to campus, but it looks like it's about to pour (AGAIN) so I'm just hoping I don't get rained on. 7: Well I know it's been forever and a half since I last updated...I guess things have been too crazy for me to think about it. Went to the End of the Year Bash for the UT cycling team. It was a lot of fun, brought some friends (Kim, Will, Mel, Matt, and Katie), then some of my friends left and Katie and I stayed to hang out with the cyclists. I ended up spending a lot of time jumping on the trampoline (in a small denim skirt no less!) and inhaling the fumes of a dying pit fire. It was pretty awesome. The weather wasn't so great beforehand, it fact it was pouring/stormy, so there weren't as many folks at the party as we were expecting, but it was still a good time. Probably the last time I'll see a lot of the cyclists until the fall semester when I move back in August. Jackson told me about how he and Steve are moving into a house over the summer, so I'll be sure to make it back into town for their move-in party. Friday was the last day of classes....Man, what a semester! I know I still have finals, but it's just comforting for me to speak about this semester in the past tense. I mean, it was absolutely nothing I expected it to be. A lot of things, personally, family-wise, class-wise, and other things....it was a real 180-degree turn from where I thought I'd be. Not a bad thing, just something to get used to I guess. Not to sound too reflective/philosophical/etc, but I've come to realize that life is about the here and now and needs to be lived....spending 100% of one's time preparing for the future gets you nowhere....because when you get to the "future" you've prepared so long and hard for, you won't know how to appreciate it. I dunno if that makes any sense, I hope it does. I'm very inarticulate about these things. Anyway, that's my update for the day. I'm really looking forward to having finals past me so I can relax and hang out with people I haven't seen in a long time. This is going to be a good summer. April 2006 Find your own pose! February 2006 9: If men were planes......I'd date an F/A-18 Hornet. 8: I took the "Which superhero are you?" quiz....guess which superhero I got?? You won't be surprised! You are Hulk Hulk 85% Iron Man 85% Green Lantern 85% Superman 80% Batman 80% Wonder Woman 67% Supergirl 67% The Flash 60% Spider-Man 50% Robin 44% Catwoman 40% You are a wanderer with amazing strength. Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz Apparently I'm not Worf anymore...I'm 100% Picard, make it so! You are Jean-Luc Picard Jean-Luc Picard 100% Data 85% Spock 72% Deanna Troi 70% Will Riker 65% Mr. Scott 65% Worf 60% Geordi LaForge 60% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 55% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 55% James T. Kirk (Captain) 45% Mr. Sulu 45% Chekov 40% Uhura 35% Beverly Crusher 35% A lover of Shakespeare and other fine literature. You have a decisive mind and a firm hand in dealing with others. Click here to take the "Which Star Trek character are you?" quiz... Apparently I can't get away from being the captain all the time... You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 95% River (Stowaway) 85% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 80% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 75% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 70% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 60% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 45% Alliance 45% Wash (Ship Pilot) 45% Inara Serra (Companion) 40% A Reaver (Cannibal) 30% Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgment but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm. Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz It continues...I have to admit, cutting stuff/people is just plain fun. I wouldn't wear yellow spandex if I were paid too though....then again, I wear orange spandex every time I ride my bike.................. You scored as Wolverine. Wolverine is a loner, and a skilled fighter. He's got the hots for Jean Grey but a better fit for him would be Storm. He doesn't like to follow orders which pisses Cyclops off. He has terrible memories from the experimentation done on him at Weapon X. Even though he doesn't show it, he loves the X-Men. Powers: Fast healing and adamantium skeleton and claws. Wolverine 100% Beast 90% Jean Grey 85% Colossus 85% Storm 80% Cyclops 75% Rogue 70% Nightcrawler 50% Gambit 50% Iceman 35% Emma Frost 25% Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com And last but not least.......though I don't think this one is accurate since I like neither cigars nor sleeping around... You are Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck). You like to fight, smoke cigars, and sleep around. Deep inside, though, you're wounded and just looking for someone to love. Which Battlestar Galactica character are you? brought to you by Quizilla January 2006 So, what's new? A lot. School started. I guess this is the part where I'm supposed to write down my entire class schedule and say which prof is good and which sucks and actually expect you (whoever you are who is reading this) to read the entire thing. Well, too bad. I have better things to type than that kind of smut. I started riding in Austin. Incidentally, Austin started tearing up Shoal Creek at around the same time. So there goes my easy conduit to pretty much the rest of the city. Now the only easily-accessible route is Loop 360 (which is less than a mile from my apartment), and 360 is so damned hilly, it's almost hard to look at. What else to mention? Not much. I got furniture. I have upgraded from the floor to a matress. My computer is on a table now instead of the floor. I might make another upgrade, from a table to a desk, but that is such a huge leap I don't know if I'm ready for it. I mean, when i get a desk i will actually have to use the chairs i got...............hmm...... Sorry for the sarcasm, it's just "one of those days" as they put it. December 2005 25: It's Christmas!! I didn't do anything special today! But I did take the Seven Deadly Sins quiz. here are my results: Greed: Medium   Gluttony: Medium   Wrath: Very High   Sloth: Low   Envy: Medium   Lust: Very Low   Pride: Medium   Discover Your Sins - Click Here 5: Well, less than two and a half weeks until I leave Houston! How crazy. I'm really looking forward to going back to school. I'm really considering going to fly jets after I finish (grad) school. It's kind of fun, I never really thought I'd join the military but then again when did in the hell did I decide to live a predictable life?? Looks like I was heading in that direction but thankfully I have veered away from it. I am just really, really anti-desk-job right now. After seven glorious months at NASA, I have come to realize that it is not the place for me. I little sad in a way, but exciting too. Anyways, I haven't decided 100% yet on the Navy, but I'm leaning towards it. Perhaps I should go ahead and get my tattoo. Maybe Atlas can tell me what route to take. Or, I can always use my geology degree and go study rocks in Antarctica. They say it is one of the best Mars analogs on the planet! Hmmmmmm... November 2005 Right now I'm back in Louisiana for Thanksgiving break. I spent the day riding my bike, eating cake, eating stuffing, eating potatoes and turkey, and eating candy. I watched Tracy's copy of War of the Worlds. I really like that movie, though I still think Tom Cruise's son should've died instead of magically appearing at the end of the movie. Oh well. We finally got the internet at my house. Too bad we only have dial up. 40% of the websites won't open the first time I go to them. I changed my second major from astronomy to geological sciences. I'll have to make a schedule of 18+ hours per semester for the rest of my college career, but I figure it's worth it if I can get a degree I've wanted since I was 2. I really want to fly jets. I'm thinking about joining the Navy and learning to fly while I work on my masters degrees after I graduate from UT. It would be huge change for me, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to work with my goals and what I might enjoy in a job (at least for a few years). No clear decision on that yet, though. I need to find some Navy officers and pick their brains first. I'm going to get my tattoo soon, if my financial situation allows it. It's about time. I've been looking forward to it for years. It's only a few more weeks before I leave NASA to come back to Austin for more school. I'm looking forward to it. I love NASA, but working 8 to 5 every day for seven months can take it's toll on you. It has definitely opened my eyes to what it would be like to work there for the rest of my life. And while that eye-opening has largely been a positive experience, it has made me realize that there are a number of other things I want to do before I settle in to a job at NASA. Big decisions are looming for me as to whether I want to work there full-time after I graduate. After all, there is more than one road to follow to become an astronaut......... October 2005 23: Check out the Space Generation Congress page for pics of my trip to Japan! (it's under the "Projects" link on the main menu.) 19: So I didn't go to nationals because of hurricane Rita. That is the bad news. The good news is that I got a week of paid vacation because of hurricane Rita. Spending a week in Austin while your house doesn't get destroyed by a hurricane is a good thing! Since then I have busied myself with various projects and attended the Space Generation Congress! I made a page for it so I can post my pictures there, but it's not very meaty yet since a) I haven't developed my 135 pictures yet and b) I am still severely jet-lagged. The good news is that I finally landed in an airplane! The bad news is that I landed in an airplane six times in as many days! >_< Anyways, look for SGC pics soon! 1: Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I last updated my page! I guess that's what happens when you don't have a computer other than the one you use at work...oh well. I've been up to a lot lately. From May 24 to September 9, I worked in the Spaceflight Training Division training astronauts and flight controllers in the life support systems for the International Space Station. Now I've transferred to Astrobiology and am working on a machine that will eventually be sent to Mars to search for evidence of life. I had been training for collegiate track cycling nationals, but that fell through because of Hurricane Rita's movement near Houston. The good thing is that for this past year I posted a number of PR's for my track events: 13.93 seconds for the 200m and 43.4 seconds for the 500m. If I can top those times by a second, especially for the 200m, then I will be set to do really well at nationals. Projects I'm working on outside of work: an origami lamp made of paper lilies (I decided against airplanes because they are too simple-looking to look really cool), a line-following robot, reading three books at once, and learning Japanese (well, re-learning it) and Russian. I'm going to Japan in a couple of weeks for the Space Generation Congress (www.explorerswanted.com). I'm also working on a C-9 (the new "vomit comet") experiment to study space tethers, and leading a design team and a fund-raising team for Engineers without Borders. My older sister Renae (waddup Renae?????) is in Sendai, Japan, right now(!) teaching English and will be there until next fall. I'll bet she is having a blast and I WISH I was there with her!!!! Anyways, I am really looking forward to going back to school, to hang out with everybody and to finally ride my bike without fear of dying. The people in Houston are cool but they are a little boring. Maybe it's just me, I don't know. I like being a hermit though. :) April 2005 11: Last week I went to the Huston-Tulleson (excuse my bad spelling) to hear cosmonaut Yuri Usachev and a Russian scientist (whose name I can't remember) talk about a manned mission to Mars, and Russia's plan for space. It was awesome! I had kind of a hard time understanding the scientist's talk, but Yuri's English was excellent. There weren't too many people there (not as many as there should've been), but it was good because I got to go up to Yuri and say hello after the talks were over. He also had a penguin suit with him and some Russian food, etc., for everyone to look at. And he had a glove from what I assume to be an Orlan suit....the glove was pretty small but it fit me perfectly!! It's an omen!!! I spent just about the entire weekend in the wind tunnel in the aerospace building on campus running tests on a prototype Martian tumbleweed rover. And the week before that, I spent ~8 hours in two days working on some of the mechanical components for the scanning monochromator for my astronomical instrumentation class. I don't think I've ever had classes that demanded so much in terms of outside work (not really homework...just experiments and such). But it's fun, it's all really interesting, so I'm enjoying it. Damn I can't wait to get back to NASA. March 2005 21: Seems like each time I come back to write an update, I find out another month has passed and I have to type in a new heading for the update I'm writing. For the thousands out there who are intrigued by my fascinating life, I sincerely apologize. I started reading this book about a doctor on an alien world, and I know that it's not high-quality sci-fi, but it's such a good story and a page-turner that I can't put it down. It looks like Marque and Reprisal and The Elegant Universe will have to wait. As for other events, not much has happened. I did a couple of races, and yes, I've been deliquent in writing my race reports (I really need to buy a computer) so I'll try to get on that. I got my butt kicked at Pace Bend, and was doing really well (1st place, in fact) at all the events at the collegiate track cycling conference championships before I crashed and sprained my left hand. It's odd, I crashed on my right side, but mangled my left hand. Anyways, I'm off the bike for at least two weeks. Booooooo! School's going well. I got a 98% on my Fluids test and a 99% in circuits. I had a spacecraft dynamics test the Thursday before spring break, and I don't think I did that well. But the prof curves, so hopefully I at least did better than everyone else (doubt it, though)! BTW, it's the vernal equinox today! Just as much day as night! Weeee! February 2005 26: I raced at the Walburg Road Race today. It sucked. I got a flat. And I got a flat (two, actually) at the race I did last weekend. I'm racing again tomorrow and if I get a flat I'm going to EXPLODE! 7: School is good. I'm a week ahead in my homeworks, I've taken up cooking because I actually have the time for it (I used to be into cooking back in middle school), and despite the fact that the rain has kept me from riding my bike very much (I'm averaging ~10 hours/week now) I still feel like I'm ready for the racing season, which begins officially on February 19. Yeah that was a really long sentence. January 2005 29: Kind of having a difficult time adjusting to the extra time I have... I don't work at the wind tunnel anymore, so that adds about 15 extra hours of time to my week. I'm trying not to watch TV, to read books and sleep instead. But there is the inevitable lack of anything to do, after I've slept enough and read 50+ pages in whatever book I'm reading, what else is there to do? I'm in an apartment off-campus now, so I can't just wander around the dorms like I used to and talk to my friends... Today I was so bored I went to the aerospace building and built a Mars habitat in Solidworks (a CAD program). Geez, I need more to do. Then again, this is only the second week of school and I'm sure things will get busier later on. BUT ANYWAY...take a look at this link. It absolutely cracks me up. I never knew I had my very own mango! You cannot touch the mango!!! Passion Fruit 27: School has taken over my life, as I knew it would. The good thing is that, for once, I have study groups in a bunch of my classes to work with. Most of the people in these groups are fellow co-ops I met in Houston. Anyways, school aside, not too much is going on. Having cable TV for the first time is kind of strange, especially since I'm addicted to Stargate and Battlestar Galactica but hey oh well I'm getting my homework done so that's all that matters.... ...right? 19: So the new year has started, school started yesterday, and everything is accelerating into the mess that is college life. I love it. This time last week I started the Deathblow, a training camp put on by my cycling team in Louisiana. It involved (for me) three days of centuries (100-mile bike rides), followed by a 40-mile ride on Friday. It was painful, and I'm still recovering, but hopefully it will give me the jump-start I need to take on the other racers here in Texas come late February. I started classes, as I said earlier. I updated the class schedule on this website, though I don't know who would actually care enough to read it. Anyways, all of my profs seem really good, accept for one who seems to be kind of aloof. But we'll see. December 2004 23: So you know how they have all these medicines for all kinds of crap? Like Tylenol, Geritol, etc? I think they should make a medicine for bad times. They could call it: Goddamnitol............... 13: Awesome things that have happened lately: Watching "Apollo 13" in the actual Flight Control Room used during Apollo 13...with one of the flight controllers (Sy Liebergot). Going to an International Space Station Crew debrief for Expedition 9. Astronaut Mike Fincke told all of us in Flight Crew Equipment how it was to use our stuff in space. He said it was really cool. We weren't surprised to hear it. Winning a NASA Co-op Special Achievement Award and the $500 stipend that comes with it. Wandering around the astronaut offices on the 6th floor of building 4S at the Johnson Space Center...and getting multiple autographs out of it. Riding bikes in Austin for 5 hours at a time. And eating free venison afterwards. And looking up with a mouthful of meat and seeing the International Space Station float by. Getting cash and my debit card back after having my wallet stolen. Getting reimbursed by NASA for $648 I spent a few months ago for tuition. Going to Barnes and Noble and buying $48 of space books, a $10 glass chess board, and a $12 Derek Jeter action figure. Playing DDR at K's apartment and losing...then winning...then losing. Then playing hockey (with said DDR pads) and kicking lots of ass at it. Finding that the Gilruth gym at the Johnson Space Center got a recent upgrade of all of its equipment, making for a much more enjoyable weight-lifting experience. Drinking all of the things listed below and not even getting a buzz: -4 cups of Blue Carribbean (and very spiked) punch -7 Jello shots, including 4 orange, 2 strawberry, and 1 green/lime flavored -a few sips of beer -a half-vodka, half-Sprite concoction made by Jackie Knowing that this time next week I will be sleeping in. November 2004 6: I've decided that, on this first weekend off in 8 weeks, that I'm going to go to Galveston on Sunday. I'm just going to sit on the beach and read/draw/sleep and try to relax. It's going to be great. I'm probably going to leave early in the morning to avoid traffic. Yeah, it's another day of waking up early, but I slept 14 hours last night so I think my body can handle it. Oh, and I made spaghetti today. It was good. And I bought groceries. Renae, if you read this, you need to call me. Your phone sucks and I can never reach you! Oh yeah, check out the Race Reports on the Miscellaneous page. I've updated it to cover...well, the entire past year of racing. 4: Ahhh.....winter weather has FINALLY reached Houston. It feels so good. Gosh I can't believe it's November already. I got third at the TX State Road Cycling championships. I also have gotten 2nd place at the last 3 collegiate cycling events...now I'm in second overall in the conference! NASA is a blast, as usual. I hate that I will have to leave in a month. I hope I don't cry on my last day. My have seven projects I'm working on right now and they are all awesome. Right now I'm tasked with finding where I'm going to work for my next co-op tour. I know I'm going to work in MOD (Mission Operations Directorate) either in Crew Training or the Systems Division. Either way I am going to pick a group that works on ECLSS (Environmental Crew and Life Support Systems) because I know that's where my interest lies. But anyway. I have some reading to do. Hope everything's going ok in the rest of the world. OH YEAH AND I CAN'T BELIEVE THE US REELECTED BUSH. WHAT THE HELL?!?!?! SOMEBODY EXPLAIN HOW THAT HAPPENED. October 2004 7: Skydiving, SKYdiving, SKYDIVING! The day after tomorrow! Should I start writing my will now????? 5: My apologies for not updating for the entire month of September. I never imagined a full-time job could take so much out of you! Getting up at 6:45 every morning, working until 5pm, and going on super-fast bike rides right after work is just crazy talk. I have been going to bed at 9:30 on a regular basis now. NASA is great, of course. All of my projects are going well. I found out that I'm going to be giving a huge presentation for the iPod project for the Space Shuttle...I'll be presenting to all of my fellow engineers, some astronauts, and other important people. I hope I don't screw it up! I also got to go into the mockup of Node 2, one of the large modules for the International Space Station that they are working on in a nearby building. It isn't the actual module that will go into space (they do that at Kennedy Space Center in Florida in a clean environment) but it was neat to walk around inside it anyway. One of the technicians was there and he was very nice, and answered all of my questions even though I just kind of showed up randomly and interrupted his work. Collegiate cycling has been a big priority for me every weekend. I did the Chappell Hill road race in late September and placed badly because I didn't race with any kind of strategy at all. I also raced at Stephen F. Austin University on September 25-26, and got lost in the road race which was awful. I placed 3rd in the criterium which was good. I got back from that race just in time for the Houston Symphony performance I had planned to attend. The symphony was great, I got to hear Debussy which I have on CD, and I must say it sounds a lot better live! This past weekend I raced at Clifton and got 2nd in the road race; the time trial was scratched due to, shall we say, "race course malfunctions." I got 3rd at the Baylor road race the next day, which was very hard even though it was pancake flat. My plans are to go skydiving this Saturday (I've never been up in a plane before so it should be interesting) and to compete in the Texas State cycling championships this Sunday. August 2004 23: Big update!! Probably the biggest update for the next few years of my life! First, a synopsis of the local cycling scene: Yeah, I went to ride with the local group. They are very different from the guys in Shreveport! I think the reason for it is b/c it's PANCAKE FLAT out here! I'm serious, there are NO HILLS here!! It's unbelieveable. So anyways it's strange b/c the entire group--I'm not just talking about the fast guys--the entire group goes 20+ mph down the road. And it's a big group too, with fat men and women and stuff like that. I did 40 miles, but a bunch of people went and did 65, I kind of wanted to go with them but it was supposed to rain and I didn't want to get caught in it. The ride was fast, even though I could tell that the folks I was with weren't the local 'cream of the crop' riders. Anyways, at one point it was so easy I just shifted into my big ring and my hardest gear and just mashed down the road. And when it was my turn to pull I cranked it up from 22 to 24 (I increased speed gradually, of course--I didn't want to piss anybody off) and pulled for..well, a long time. I like this group, though. They like to accelerate around corners, and sprint all the time, which suits my tastes for cycling. I just can't wait until I have all the local routes memorized so I can go roll around on my own for a bit. OKAY, ABOUT MY FIRST DAY AT NASA. First of all, this place is AWESOME. I still can't believe I'm working here, and at the end of the day my mentor (who is a full-fledged engineer in charge of overseeing my duties) had to shoo me away because it was 5:00 and time to go. ANYWAYS, THERE'S MUCH TO TELL SO LET ME BREAK IT DOWN: 6am: I woke up, and was ready to GO. I had to get there at 7 for security stuff, and ended up getting to our briefing room about a half-hour early. But there were a bunch of folks there too so it was OK. 8am-~11:30: We filled out forms. LOTS of forms. And then they gave us more forms to fill out later. I just about died from hunger, but I was at NASA so I guess they could've jabbed me with hot pokers the whole time and I wouldn't have minded. Noon: All the co-ops went to one of the on-site cafeterias to eat and socialize. It was fun, but I didn't have enough time to finish my peach pie so I was kind of disappointed. This cute guy (not a co-op) a couple of tables away kept staring at me....I didn't mind, lol. 1-5pm: This is when it got interesting (well, more interesting!). I found out where I'm assigned, which is EC-3, the Weightless Environment area of the Engineering Crew and Thermal Systems Division. Yeah, it sounds badass. AND IT IS. I met my mentor, and she's really cool. She's very outgoing and very direct. She doesn't baby me and I'm glad for that, because I damned well don't want to be patronized (even though I know everyone else there knows 999,999,999 more things about the space program than me). Anyways, I went around and was introduced to everybody on my floor, including two Lockheed Martin co-ops who I chatted with later. Of course I forgot everybody's names, but that's ok, I'll learn them later. It took me a while to get my computer set up, but I finally did. My mentor has already scheduled me for a *bunch* of meetings, one of which is all about the emesis bags that apparently I'm going to design pretty much on my own! (or at least that's the impression I've got). Emesis bags are puke bags for the Shuttle and Station, in case you were wondering. She said that at the emesis bag meeting, I was to take notes of all the goings-on/discussion, and then whatever they decided needed to be done with the bags I WAS GOING TO DO. That was pretty cool to hear. THEN CAME THE BEST PART. And it was on a whim from Jennifer (my mentor). She saw on her MS Outlook calender (which is apparently the center of everyone's scheduling abilities) that there was a meeting on the FFT (something-flight-trainer) in the Vehicle Mockup Facility (where the astronauts train on to-scale replicas of the shuttle and other space vehicles). Apparently they were discussing how to adjust the design of the Shuttle trash bags so that they are secure at 20 g's. Now, why they need to be secure at 20 g's is beyond me, but you know. Anyways, these are thick cloth trash bags and weigh a pound. So at 20 g's it's about the force of 20 pounds...and if that comes loose and hits you in the back of the head in-flight, well, you're screwed. I got to crawl around in the Shuttle mockups and climb up ladders and stuff--it was so cool! And the people were awesome about it. I asked a bunch of questions and even offered a suggestion regarding the design of some velcro straps they use (I suggested they replace them with carabiners because they don't have to be replaced after each flight, whereas the velcro straps do...they had thought of that already and were considering it as a viable option! I was excited to know I had thought of something useful even though they'd thought of it already). They were surprised when I told them I was a co-op and then asked me about where I work, and all that stuff. And it was so cool b/c I had just showed up randomly to their discussion in the orbiter and they were like "Okay, come on in" and showed me where stuff was and what exactly they were talking about. So that was awesome. I was all happy. ^_^ After that, I went back to Jennifer and she sent me on an errand to drop off some tape to a lady in another building. Apparently it was for a prototype of something that she was building. It was cool because I had to type in security codes to get into that building and wear goggles when walking around and stuff. And the Lockheed Martin co-ops came with me, they thought I had been at NASA a while and were surprised to find out that it was my first day too. Anyways, after that I went back to the office but it was time to go and that's when Jennifer kind of shoo-ed me away. She and a big group of people were discussing money, and someone had taken my chair and was sitting in it, so I took the hint. Plus, it was after 5:00 and they said I'd be psycho to stick around just to hear them talk about budgeting. They were right, so I left. So that was my first day. I can't wait to go back tomorrow, and I can't believe they're PAYING ME FOR THIS! Oh yeah, and there's a meeting next week about certifying iPods for use in space, and I'm on the list to go. And what makes this meeting even cooler?? The fact that Marsha Ivins, and astronaut, is on the list of attendees! The only reason I know she's an astronaut is because I'm psycho and I know the names of more astronauts than...well, than probably all of the co-ops, that's for sure. So after work (at ~7pm), the co-ops went to Fuddruckers and ate and talked and stuff. I just got back and it's about nine. It was fun, and some folks went to a local bar but I didn't go because I still have all these forms to fill out and I don't want to be up late since I haven't adjusted to waking up early yet. Tomorrow the local bike club does a super-fast 20 mile ride several miles from here. I'm going to try to make it. They go out at 23 mph and come back at ~28. If it's flat (and it is) and I'm drafting I might be able to hang on. It is only 20 miles after all. Anyways, that's all from here. I'll add more later..... :-D 13: Change of plans for when I go to Houston. Due to some schedule changes on the part of the folks I'm moving in with, it looks like I'll be leaving on the 18th (Wednesday) instead of the 20th/21st. I'm in the midst of negotiations with my parents to get our big red van for use while I'm on my co-op tour. HOPEFULLY this will happen as I don't want to get killed riding my bike around the 4th-largest city in the US. 9: Yesterday was the LAMBRA State Team Time Trial Championships. MAN what a ride! We rode 32 miles in 1:31 and averaged 21.1 mph. My teammates were Lisa Colvin, Liz Rambin, and Susan Wilson. We lost Susan on the first lap, but the minimum needed to finish was three so we were ok. I suffered on the second lap but recovered later for a strong finish. The wind was nasty; the course was a loop so half of it was a tailwind and half was a monster headwind. Afterwards I discovered a serious case of dehydration and was so messed up by it that I had to be helped off my bike. My legs are still in pain, I don't think I've cramped so much in my life. But it was a lot of fun, we finished 4th which wasn't great but the experience made up for it. Our paceline was so smooth you could've taken time by it! I intend to drive over to Monroe next Tuesday to ride with Lisa, Liz, and Susan one last time before I move to Houston. What a great weekend! Check out the pictures page for proof that I was there! (Click on "Cycling Photos" and go through the album to get to them) 5: Well, it's about that time--time to get ready to go to Houston! Woohoo! I got all of my papers and whatnot together. Making phonecalls, filling out forms, buying stuff...I can't wait! yay! July 2004 27: I accomplished a first this past weekend regarding cycling: I did my first hundred-mile ride! It was 5 and a half hours of pure pain and agony (AKA: it was a lot of fun). We averaged 18 mph over very hilly, extremely hot terrain and I can honestly say, since I will never be a pro and therefore will never have to race 100 miles, that I probably won't do it again any time soon. 19: Blah, blah, blah. This summer has turned into a big clock of a) how many miles I ride each day/week, and b) how many books I read each week (not that I'm complaining). Note the books page and the number of new reviews. Yeah, and that tan line is getting pretty bad. I've even got one on my face now (from my sunglasses). 7: For the last week, I rode 270 miles at about 13 hours. Trying to get as much training in as possible before I get a job. Yeah...about getting a job...maybe I should be trying harder, but honestly, when the Johnson Space Center is waiting for you it's hard to show much enthusiasm for being a waitress, or a cashier, or whatever else. BAH. June 2004 30: Done with class. Wishing I could ride more, but the rain prevents it. Can't wait to go to Houston already! 25: I'm serious, it's like the friggin' monsoon season around here! It won't stop raining! When do I get to ride outside?? 22: Lots of class. Lots of riding. I went 36 miles on Sunday, averaging 18 mph solo. I think it's a good sign that I'm not a total putz on the bike right now. On that ride I had to stop twice for turtles. The first stop was to move a really big but scared red-eared turtle from the middle of the road. The second stop was to move a huge snapping turtle from the road. It nearly bit me, but I managed to get it off the road by shoving it along with my water bottle. Aside from that, not much. I got a room in Clear Lake, Houston, reserved for this upcoming Fall semester. I'll be living with a married couple, who are both triathletes. I spoke with one of them on the phone and he seems really nice. Hopefully they'll be able to show me the good places to ride around there! 8: Hey, I turned 20 yesterday! Do I feel old? Not any more than I did before. Not much to update on now...same old stuff. Class, cycling (though that has been somewhat slow going since it won't stop raining around here), and lots of reading. And admittedly more time on my brother Daniel's X-Box than is probably good for me. But what's the summer for? 5: The power at our house has been out for four days. Not that it bothers me that much, since all I do is read and ride my bike anyway. My brother is missing is X-Box, and my parents are dying for some TV. The big problem is that the house gets so hot at night that it's damn near impossible to sleep. And those bullfrogs in the bayou outside....they're so loud, they sound like really tame versions of Nazgul. I'm in the midst of taking some classes at the local community college. I'm taking Cultural Geography and American History II. Both are for transfer credit for my majors. May 2004 26: I went riding outside for the first time in what seems like an eternity! It was wonderful. And thanks to Renae for playing domestique by picking up my aerobar pad that broke off while I was riding. Oh yeah, check out the books page, I finally got that review for First on the Moon up...now I'm into Rough Ride by Paul Kimmage. It's definitely a very insightful--and somewhat depressing--look at the world of competitive cycling. 24: YAY!! I'M A PRIMATE AGAIN!! Got the cast off not more than a couple of hours ago...the doctor said I could start riding my bike again! Woohoo! 23: Silly biznatch Renae had her 4th triathlon this year. I was beating her with my cast the whole time, as I drove alongside her during the race. She was going so damn slow I didn't feel like waiting, and a beating ensued. I also got a few "Yessuh massuh"'s from her as a bonus. I bought Season 6 of Stargate SG-1 to watch as I work out inside on my bike, using the small amount of money I got from my last wind tunnel pay check. I think it was a good investment as I need something to keep me sane as I spend many hours riding in the dungeon that is my room. Yay! 21: So school's out, and I survived finals. I didn't get straight A's, but I somewhat knew that before this semester even started, so it's not so bad. Packing was time-consuming, especially with just one hand and a fool sister to help me...>:) Said fool sister took the DVD player from the house. And we have no computer, nor to we have (or ever had) cable. And I can't play any X-Box games, at least not well with just one thumb. And no cycling. So what do I do with all this free time? Read, read, read! Yay for books. That's all. 9: Finished so far: Solids, Tests 1, 2, and 3; Dynamics, Tests 1, 2, and 3, and the homework; Modern Physics: relativity. Not too bad. I'm ahead of schedule somewhat. 7: Last class day! Woohoo!!! Now time to study for finals. Today I played about 4 hours of volleyball with lots of aerospace people and finished pledging for Sigma Gamma Tau! Here's my [insert big booming voice] Finals Study Schedule....!!!! Friday (today): Solids: Tests 2 and 3 Saturday: Modern Physics: relativity; Solids: new material Sunday: Dynamics: Tests 1 and 2, and do homework that's due Monday Monday: Work at the wind tunnel from 10-3; Dynamics: Test 3 and turn in homework Tuesday: Modern Physics: Tests 3 and 4; Dynamics: chapters 20 and 21(no sleep) Wednesday: Dynamics Final; study all Engineering Design Graphics material Thursday: Engineering Design Graphics Final; Study Modern Physics: Tests 1 and 2, and review all other material Friday: Modern Physics Final; review all Thermodynamics material (no sleep) Saturday: Thermodynamics Final; Solids: Test 1 Sunday: Review all Solids Monday: Solids Final...followed promptly by some form of decompression Tuesday: Pack...and get the hell outta Dodge! Yes...I have 5 finals, and one of those is 100% drawing, which I get to do with my broke-ass hand. Yay for cycling. 1: More anti-left-handedness: Can openers! They are impossible to use with the left hand. And also impossible to use with one functioning hand but that is inavoidable. Computer keyboards. They put the arrow keys and the easy-to-use numbers on the right side! So if I want to scroll down a page...well, I use my right hand (I'm not that much of a gimp) but it's still discrimination! April 2004 28: It's 2:15am and I just started studying for my Thermodynamics test that I have tomorrow. I spent 90% of today (or yesterday, I guess) studying for Dynamics, which I also have tomorrow. I am so tired. My eyes hurt. So glad I went to Kins Korner for that extra caffeine boost... If no one is able to find me when the sun comes up, chances are it's because I'm still in the computer lab studying for Thermo. And if I'm asleep when you find me, poke me with a stick so I can get to my 8am Solids class on time. Take a look at me during Collegiate Cycling Championships...this is before my hand was crushed. Photo is by Oscar Garcia, UT Cycling's Treasurer. 24: So a lot has happened. This past weekend we had the South-Central Collegiate Cycling Conference Championships, during which I raced somewhat badly. The road race was hard, and it turns out that despite my many efforts at learning to climb hills here in Austin...well, I still suck at climbing hills. Brenda and I averaged 20.5 mph in the 12.6-mile hilly, windy team time trial. I think we rode really well. In the criterium I feel I had 3rd place in the bag. I had a decent gap on one of the women from MSU....Then, turning a corner with 30 mph winds at my back, I somehow lost my balance and crashed. To be honest, I was being really aggressive, but there was also a bump on that corner that I hadn't noticed previously. So that might explain why I ate it. I don't know. Anyways, it turns out that I broke 2 bones in my right wrist, along with a nice patch of road rash on my right leg the size of a melon. I wasn't aware of the extent of my injuries at the time of the crash (there were no holes in my skinsuit to give me a clue), so being a naturally dumb-assed person I got right back up and finished the race, dead last. I went to the orthopedist Wednesday--yes, I somehow managed to make it to the doctor (actually two doctors--I went to the SSB, too) between my 7 hours of Wednesday class. Turns out I may need surgery for my wrist. I can still write with my right hand, mainly with my index and middle fingers, but it's a pain. And in case anyone's wondering how it is I'm typing all this crap, it's because I'm doing it with my left hand. Speaking of left hands, I have discovered in my gimpy adventures that the world as a whole is very prejudiced against left-handed people. For instance, in my Engineering Design Graphics class, I was using some digital calipers to measure a hex screw. I was forced to use my left hand and--lo and behold--when you hold the calipers with your left hand the display faces away from you! I was appalled. And then, while doing my Solids homework I realized that I was pretty much screwed when it came to using the right-hand rule. And writing on spiral notebooks--you have to flip them over or write on the back side of a page for the spirals to not get in the way. And scissors suck too. What the hell is up with all this anti-left-handed-people sentiment out there? Could someone please explain?? And so ends my ranting for this weekend. 16: My bad, I haven't updated in a while...OK so what's been happening in my life? I got advised this morning for "classes" next semester--namely, my co-op at NASA. Apparently, of the 416 people in aerospace engineering, there are only 12 people with dual majors! I didn't think I was in such small company, but then again aerospace is crazy hard so I guess it makes sense. I'll be off to Waco this afternoon for Conference Collegiate Cycling Championships. Geez that's a lot of C's. Anyways, I'm not expecting good results, but it will be a nice break from the environment of the Honors dorm--I'll be out of the Andrews lounge for more than 12 hours! How ever will I survive??? My last race starts at noon, and it's an hour, and it's a 2-hour drive, so I'm expecting to be back at around 3 or 4pm Sunday. Just in time to miss QuadFest! Yeah it sucks. OK I'm tired so I'm going to go fold laundry and take a 30-minute nap. 9: I can't believe it's April the 9th already. It seems like the weeks are just flying by...pretty soon the semester will be over and it'll be time to go home I suppose. :-/ I went cycling today and yesterday. The ride yesterday let me know how out of shape I am. This season has been so crappy, hopefully I'll make up for it this summer and fall. And next spring maybe I'll be decently fast, perhaps fast enough to go to Nationals. I know for sure I don't have any business going this year. I'm feeling somewhat reflective right now. Looking back over this semester (and school year) I really feel like I've finally learned how to study. Last year I had no concept of time management (and it shows in the grades), and I think I've figured it out just in time to get to the really hard classes. It doesn't seem to be helping my grades much, but at least I know I'm doing everything I can to get what I get in my classes. When I think about it, I spend the vast majority of my free time studying. I'm surprised those couches in Andrews don't have a permanent imprint of my ass in them. If I didn't know better, I'd feel bad for spending so much time doing something that I don't particularly like doing (studying). I hardly ride my bike at all anymore, it seems (about 10 hours a week, despite my training schedule which demands a whopping 13 hours a week of riding). That doesn't make me feel bad, at least until I compete and am totally trounced by the other women (and most of the men). Also I'm really enjoying my job, but that has taken a back seat to school too. And all for the dream of being an astronaut. What sucks is that plenty of qualified and talented people don't make it into the Astronaut corps, and no one really knows why except the people doing the choosing. Of course they can't let everyone be an astronaut, so they have to cut some people for some reason. I don't know what I'll be cut for. They don't hire a lot of people for medical reasons alone. If one day I find out that I can't be an astronaut simply because of my scoliosis (which was diagnosed when I was 11...but nothing was ever done about it) I don't know what I'll do. I can take getting cut if I'm not intelligent enough, or not practical enough or whatever, but to not even have the chance because of an illness that was totally avoidable would be crushing. So I wonder what the point of all this studying is. I like learning, true, but there is a point beyond which learning book knowledge costs learning in other areas. How is one to know which is more important or valuable? What if you pass up the opportunity to meet/talk to someone incredible in order to finish your science/math/etc problems that aren't due until a week from now? So is chasing a dream that might not happen worth so much time and potential experience? What if I find myself in 10 years, not an astronaut and regretting how many possibilities I passed up in order to get there? And is being an astronaut really that great? The truth is, I'll never know until I'm there. And that's assuming I get there at all. 5: Got a 97% on my Thermodynamics test. ;) Seeing as I decided to skip that class today, I'm going to go ride some hills out west. 4.5: After studying for my Solids test for 11 hours, I decided to update my profile on AIM. I couldn't remember how to spell the word school so I looked it up in a dictionary. It's not like engineers need to know words like "skooll" anyways. I mean school. Whatever. 3: Hellboy is really good! Go see it! I may watch it again at some point if I have the money (which means probably not). Today was Honors Day at UT...I got nice little orange cords for having a not-too-crappy GPA. Also, today is daylight savings, which means we all need to move our clocks forward an hour. There goes my 3rd hour of sleep Sunday night.... 2: I just sent in two scholarship applications, at least one of which I hope will come back with positive results. I am in dire need of money to help pay for school....The first scholarship was the NASA/Hispanic College Fund's National Hispanic Explorers Scholarship. I actually wrote essays for this one! Yes, I actually wrote something that wasn't just numbers! The second application was for the Southwest Texas Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Scholarship. That one I'm pretty confident about. The NASA one, though...that's awarded to 10 students nationwide at $5,000 each. My chances are much slimmer for it, but I think I still have a shot. Going to see Hellboy tonight with Kim and Will, and possibly some other folks I haven't heard about yet. It looks like it should be a pretty goot movie, if not for the acting then at least for the explosions. It will be my short break before I bust my butt tomorrow with my weekly 3-hour bike ride and, of course, lots of studying for el Solids test on Monday. March 2004 New Photo 29: OK for those out there who haven't noticed, I've added a guestbook to the main page! So go sign it RIGHT NOW! In case anyone out there is wondering, the cosmonauts featured in the background are Sergei Krikalev and Yuri Gagarin. I rode Mesa hill today out west. It was hard, as usual, but tolerable. By the time my fourth repeat of the hill was over I was definitely ready to go home. I takes me about 4:35 to climb that crap. Ugh, it hurts just to think about it! 26: So it's been about a week since I last updated. The Fayetteville stage race was not quite a disaster, but it was close. The only good thing about it is that I didn't crash. I will add a race report within a few days or so. I got a really nice email from the lady at NASA who interviewed me...she asked where I'd like to work within NASA and that she'd try to get me a position wherever I like! Of course I'm going for Crew and Thermal Systems--that seems like the kind of area I could work in for the rest of my life. Classes are sucking. I did really badly on a modern physics (PHY 355) test this past week. And I got one of the top ten grades in the class in Mechanics of Solids, but it was a low B! And I don't think the professor curves...it kind of sucks. My dynamics test this past Wednesday was ridiculous. I think I did better than everyone else, but it was a hard test. The only one I think I aced was Engineering Design Graphics...which probably means I failed it. grrrr! I'm SO ready for this semester to be over. Still can't believe I'm working for NASA in just a few months! YAY! 19: About to go to the Fayetteville Stage Race...I'm seriously wondering why I race bikes all the time. Why, why?? Oh yeah and I added some links to the links page, along with one link on the Miscellaneous Page. Just a few things to make this site a bit more interesting... 14: I got the co-op at NASA! Woohoo! There is definitely something to be said for having big dreams and then working your butt off to make them come true. I will elaborate more in a later update. 9: Caffeine, caffeine, caffeine!! I'm goin' on 3 and a half hours of sleep, and I have an interview with NASA in about 3 hours! Lawd help me! (Sometime later): OK, so I had the NASA interview. Aside from a somewhat slow start, during which I was quite inarticulate, I think it went incredibly well. The lady who was interviewing me said it's rare for people to have actually done their research about the job. They just walk in and say, "I want to work for NASA," and have no idea what NASA is really about. She asked me what part of NASA I'd like to work in, and (because I did my research) I said I'd be most interested in Crew and Thermal Systems (which focuses mainly on life support, space suits, and EVA's). It turns out that she actually works in the Crew and Thermal Systems department! She was really impressed that I knew so much about NASA. I think I answered her questions very well, even though I stuttered a few times (but I do that all the time anyway, so it really doesn't count). Anyways, we'll see what the outcome is after spring break. That's when people usually get "the" call about the job. Arrrgggh! 7: Chips and queso. And Sigma Gamma Tau pledging silliness. I will have to put up a link for the video of the crazy stuff we did. 6: Let's see...I fell asleep last night at 11pm, woke up at 11:30 this morning, rode my bike for 3 hours and 45 minutes (about 62 miles), did some Solids homework, went to a frat party with Kim and Will (too many people were there...none of whom I knew, so it was kind of boring), came back, watched some Cowboy Bebop, and now I'm about to go to bed. Not a bad day. But man, I'm tired. 3: I got my first Thermodynamics test back today. I was somewhat disappointed that I got an 86% until I found out that the class average was a 50. Bah. I am so glad for today--it's finally a day off from working and studying all the time. I've been avoiding people in general for the past few days, just because they ("they" being nobody in particular) sometimes just get on my nerves. For instance the study lounges here in the honors dorms. I went to Andrews. It was nice and quiet, until a group of three or four people show up, chatting, and supposedly doing homework as their cell phones are going off and they mess with their CD players. Then I go to 007. It's even worse there. Much more people, much more talking. Then I go to the Carothers lounge. Nice and quiet. Then, as if they knew I was coming, these girls walk in and start chatting with some guys that had already been there (quietly) for a while. Crap. So finally I go outside. It then becomes apparent to me that the only place I'm going to find any peace--and forget the Q, that group of guys is *always* in there playing poker until about 2 in the morning--is in the middle of the Quad, under the statue. So I go sit under the statue. Not bad. But then I start doing my Engineering Design Graphics homework, which requires precise drawings of complicated figures. And the lights in the Quad aren't conducive to good drawings...I can barely see my own hand waving around in front of my own face. But by that time I was like Screw It, I'm Not Moving Again, so I stayed and finished my drawings. They ended up looking pretty shitty. So the Thermo test helped my outlook somewhat. I don't know why, but I'm in a much better mood now that I know I'm aceing that class. And what's even better, I may actually get more than 4 hours of sleep tonight. Now, if only I could somehow manage to heal Lauren's mono then everything will be 100% OK. Or as good as possible for now. I got 3rd place at Tunis Roubaix this past Saturday. That was the hardest race I think I've done in a looong time...then I came back, went to Texadelphia with Arick to pick up some food for Kim and Will, and then played Halo for about an hour at the lan party in 007. Very goot lan party Will...now I know how to play PC Halo, which means I can get my ass kicked on multiple systems now. Woohoo! I will put up race reports on Walburg and Tunis soon. And it looks like the criterium at the Airport is on. Yay. February 2004 26: I don't know how many times I fell asleep today. More than I can count on one hand, for sure. I think I'm becoming a narcoleptic....Oh yeah, and I have *the* interview for NASA on March 9. I'm going to have to prepare big time for that one. I think that will probably be my best and only chance to get the co-op job at the Johnson Space Center. I thought I might drink tomorrow (well, I guess tonight, since it's 1am) at Hoon's...I changed my mind. I suppose I will have to drink at some point in my life, but I don't think that day is today. And I think I'm going to run for the RHC Sports and Games position... I still can't believe they kicked me out of the honors dorms, even though I'm a double-major in good standing with my honors program and bust my ass in extra-curriculars. I just checked the Texas Cycling Cup website for my results from the race I did this past weekend. Apparently they forgot to include my name in the results. Considering the fact that I at least got a top-10 or top-15 finish (which is absolutely awful), they should've had my name on that results list *somewhere*. Oh well. I really don't care. My refrigerator just started making a really obnoxious noise. I hope it doesn't do that all night. I need sleep. 23: I got a 92% on my Dynamics test. I dunno who told me that was the hardest class in Aerospace Engineering...they must've thinking about some other class, maybe......................? Oh yeah and I almost got struck by lightning on my bike today. Storms are the kind of things that will make your ass ride faster. 22: Last night I stayed up until 4:00 in the morning playing video games in Shawn and Hoon's room. We ("we" being me, Arick, Will, Kim, Hoon, Shawn, Belinda, Benjamin, Tammy(?), and Ranier(sp?)) played Cranium, which apparently I'm good at, and then Halo, and some other stuff. I had a great time. I think after a week of tests, and staying up until ridiculous hours in the morning (with 8am classes 5 days a week) doing homework, having a break like that really helped a lot. And I woke up this morning at 1:00, which means I got about 9 hours of sleep! My sleep schedule is all screwed up now, but that's ok, I got sleep and had fun, which are two things I don't do very often. It's not even over yet but I can say this has been a very good weekend. 21: I raced today in the Walburg Classic, and managed to kick ass until the last 200 meters, during which I got my ass kicked. Now I'm tired. And I have to do homework. I don't see how anyone can party on a Saturday night and still do all of their homework the next day. I guess that's why not many party-goers have 3.5+ GPA's? Or maybe they're all business majors and don't have 16+ hour-long problems due every Monday. 18: Well, my Dynamics test was crazy easy. And my proposal for a new date for the UT bike race got shot down. Now I'm 0 for 3. I'm starting to get annoyed annoyed annoyed ANNOYED! 17: What?? It goes from snowing and snowman-making and snowball fights to balmy as all hell in the span of a day? I am so confused. Now I have no excuse to not ride my bike. And my toe hurts because I smashed it accidently. :-( Also, the climbing phenom of cycling, Marco Pantani, died just a few days ago, apparently of a heart attack. He was only 34! How sad. 15: I just have to survive this week...just this week....it's my only week in the whole year with 3 tests.... badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger badger.....SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!!!! rofl 8: I only seem to remember to write updates on even-numbered days. I rode my bike ~45 miles yesterday (which took about 3 hours) and 1 hour today (which, because I went very slow, was only about 15 miles). Anyways, now I'm tired. And Mechanics of Solids is the devil. Also, Dynamics is the most time-consuming subject ever created. Midterms are coming. Woe to us all.... 6: Classes are hard. Did I say that last time? Well they are. And I should say something about the Rube Goldberg project since I haven't mentioned it in a while. The machine is coming along well, but we don't have a final design yet which somewhat concerns me. That's ok. We are engineers; we will either figure it out or just build something entirely new. 4: I can't believe it's February already. My classes got hard all of a sudden. And now I'm supposed to ride my bike at least 11 hours a week. What the heck is up with this? I think the Big Crunch is coming a couple billion years early. Hosted by www.Geocities.ws