Today is Thursday, the 31st day of August, 2006. 122 days remain in the year.
Today's list of things to do reads as follows:
~get barrier passes for games
~thermo homework due tomorrow
~e-mail girls' bible study
~get notes back from 210
~work heat transfer problem
~run
~diff. eq. problems due monday

I am very glad I got the page-a-day calendar. It's not huge, but at least I have room to write all of my assignments however I want. And, I can make my grocery list. Classes are going well. I take it as a good sign that I enjoy going to my Thermo class and my Transport Phen. class. It could be because I love Dr. Skaar and Dr. Lickfield, but who knows.
Saturday, we went rafting on the Nantahala. I couldn't care less if I spelled that wrong. The first picture is of our boat headed toward the big falls thing... Brandon, Jenna, Lori, Joe, Julie and myself made an excellent team...
Right up to the point of the second picture, when we went down the falls backward/ sideways. It was pretty funny. In the middle of the picture, you can see my green life-vest sliding into the middle of the boat. I ended up on the floor of the boat. On the right, you can see Jenna being completely soaked by the bulk of the falls. Lovely, I know...
On Sunday, I went grocery shopping. It was quite successful as far as grocery shopping trips go. I am currently determined to get into shape for the Race for the Cure and eventually for the Cooper River Bridge Run. It would be my first 10k. Luckily, that one's not until March or April. Julie and I are getting new shoes next Thursday afternoon.
Joe is currently teaching/ reminding me how to play chess. It takes way too much thinking. But it's pretty fun. I find it exciting to be able to think out all the different possibilities from one move. Although it eventually makes my brain hurt. On the bright side, I'm gonna kick his butt one of these days... maybe.
Tomorrow is the First Friday Parade. I'm hoping that this year's parade won't be marred by the need to airlift someone to the hospital again. For those who don't know or don't remember, a little girl was run over last year and had to be airlifted out. But the helicopter was cool.
First game is Saturday against Florida Atlantic. If we lose, our football program should be abolished. First party is Saturday night..."Club Basement." Should be a blast.
I made a clock. I would like to share it with all of you, because I'm pretty proud of it. Here you go... Have a great week!

Classes...

So, today marks the beginning of the school year. I always love starting a semester off right with a good 8 am class. Especially with Dr. Skaar.
Backing up now, I'm going to just touch on the highlights of the past week...
Everyone came back to Clemson. Yay!
I had a lovely 4.5 hour lunch with Bon-Bon on Friday. We talked for a LONG time.
Saturday was the Really Good, Really Big, Really Cheap Book Sale for the Greenville Literacy Association. We volunteered, but I still got several books, including a road atlas and Pat the Bunny. Saturday night was Taco Night. Fue muy loco. Nobody died from my cooking. We had a lot of people there, and even some freshmen (yay for Cole, Staci, David, and Johnathon).
Sunday was the big potluck dinner at church. Rachey and I hung out after that and talked about the year and stuff...Julie came and joined us and we did something i don't remember.
Monday, I cleaned and ran errands until Joe came back at around 5:15 or so. Yay for that. Needless to say, I was (and still am) very berry happy to see him. I might have missed him quite a bit. Maybe. So I helped him unpack, then we went downtown for a while to see people down there. I had CSF at 7, then Rachel and I went back to pester him. We went to Bowman for a little while, then watched some Ali G show, then we just kinda hung out and talked.
Yesterday, i went to the dentist, took a long nap with carson (the doggg), got a hair cut, got soaked in the rain, went to the block seating meeting, then to the PSA burger thing, won a $100 gift card, took a nap, and went to bed.
This morning's class with Dr. Skaar was interesting. Being that there are 8 people in there, i had better be there every time. I have class in about half an hour...we'll see how the rest of the week goes.

out of print books and mountains of clothes

So we went to the beach last week. It was just the girls. We went to Seabrook Island and were bums for the week. We did, however, take a break from our strenuous sunbathing to go shopping in Charleston. I came back from home to Clemson on Monday. Julie and I ran around and ended up watching three movies, Talladega Nights, then The Descent and Audition later at Tripp's place with Tripp, Julie, Sara, and Barrett. That shindig ended at 3:30 am...just a little bit late...
Yesterday, I cleaned and did laundry and dealt with all of the stuff I had to do. I went downstairs and saw paul our (not anymore) freshman and Fred the dog. Fred is crazy...but he's cute and you can't help but laugh at him. Later, Julie and I went with Paul, his parents, and his roommate to moe's for dinner, then watched House. Today, I got to visit financial aid TWICE. I went in the morning, but they didn't have the letter I needed to sign, so I had to go back again later. I went back again and discovered that a lady had passed out in (of all places) the room that my letter (and Will's) was in. The EMS wouldn't let them go in to get the letters, so we had to wait for about 20 minutes before they got the letters out. I went to get my books and, $450 later, I was left with "Introduction to The Thermodynamics of Materials," "Differential Equations," "Principles of Heat Transfer," and "Manufacturing Processes for Engineering Materials." One of my books is listed as "out of print"...that means that there shouldn't be a book for this class. Stupid teacher requests a book that's out of print. I went to Wal-Mart and did my grocery shopping. I also have replaced all 8 of the bulbs that were out in our apartment. There's one I haven't gotten yet, cause it's the light in our garage...I don't wanna do that one. I'm gonna go in a few minutes to the bookstore on campus to see what I can find there, then I'm gonna go empty my notes from spring semester out of my locker in the library. Sounds exhilarating, doesn't it? Tonight, Julie and I are going to go pick up Rachel from the airport. Yay for Triumvirate reunions! Should be insanity. Be thankful you won't be there...

The Trip Back from Texas: The Return of The Queen (and the Kings)

Where was I?
Oh! So the temperature started fluctuating and spiking about every 2 hours or so, so we would stop and let the car cool down a bit. I passed out in Atlanta, not long after our slightly frightening (to me anyway) jaunt down the wrong end of MLK drive/blvd/ave/whatevs. I faintly recall Danny saying something to me, and I was awakened at one point by my phone (it was Joe, enquiring as to whether or not we had had any more car trouble or something...I'll confess I was half asleep on the phone, so I want to apologize here for anything strange I may have said.). We got back to Clemson at around 2:30, and I was in bed by 3 (am. not pm.). This morning, I had planned on going to work at around 10. Then my alarm went off and I reset it for later. Four times. I ended up getting out of bed at around 10:30. It was a lovely rest. I unpacked and repacked for the beach, I did my laundry, I washed the stink of the interstate out of my hair (we had had to keep the windows down, because the air conditioner was putting a strain on the car), and I talked to Julie. We went to lunch at the China Buffet and had a good chat. We then proceeded to watch tv for the rest of the afternoon. We started out at her place, then we went to my place, where I made burgers and peas. A rather sparse dinner, but enough to sustain us. We watched 7th heaven, then she left. I'm all packed up and ready to leave tomorrow. I'll either be driving home after work tomorrow to leave for the beach on Wednesday, or I'll be leaving work when mom calls me and driving to Greenville to go to the beach tomorrow. Either way, I'm going to the beach. Yay! I can't wait to lay in the sun and do nothing for a few days.
Have a great week!

home again, home again, jiggety jig

This is our adorable matching golf team. I mentioned earlier that they came in second place.
Let's see...So we went to our classes and stuff on Saturday. My first class was a small group of five of us, all girls. We sat and discussed and swapped ideas about our girls' programs. I think I picked up quite a bit from the other ladies. My second class disappointed me, because it wasn't very well organized and I think the importance of the topic was lost in the muddle. After classes, we went to the Cheesecake Factory with Rachey and her momma. It was possibly the yummiest thing ever.
We then went (and Rachel too) with the groups from Delaware and Virginia Tech to the movies to see Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. (The second picture is of the whole group at the movies. See in the back middle? It's my Rachey!) I hardly stopped laughing through the entire movie. We took Rachel back to her mommy, then went back to the dorms. After the other groups got back to the dorm, several of us went swimming in the fountians on campus. We had to be told to get out. hehehe. We packed up the car yesterday morning and, after finding some caffeine free dr. pepper, got on the road a little before 8:30 greenville time. We were making excellent time when the fan that runs the air conditioner started making a squealing noise. Then, the temperature gauge suddenly got really really high. Anyway, we pulled off the interstate at a gas station in Bolton, Mississippi. The car smoked for a while, then we opened it up and looked at it until we had determined that we didn't know what was wrong with it. Then some guy came out and told us that his friend was a mechanic. Anyway, that guy came out and took a look at it. He said it was a broken water pump, and that he could replace it for us.
So we spent a little time at the gas station, hanging out at the picnic tables under the trees. It was more like 3.5 hours than a "little time," but hey, it works. This picture is of the guys playing Phase 10 at the gas station. After they fixed it, we got back on the road, having given up on being back by 10 or 11. We drove for about 2 hours when the temperature started spiking and fluctuating again. So we stopped and let it cool down. We discovered very quickly that the temperature spikes every two hours or so...
I'll have to finish this saga later. More important things need to be done now. Like bonding with my Ju-Bear and stuff. yeah.

Texas, day 5

How ya'll doin?
Obviously, a few days are missing.
Anyway, last time, I promised a story about the strange people I had encountered. My day on Thursday began when a 50-something man offered to give me a personal tour of Dallas (kinda creepy) after I asked him what there was to do nearby. Then, I was treated very rudely by the woman at Barnes & Noble when I asked her if they had wireless ("well it says it on the door, doesn't it? i mean, i don't know, but i'm pretty sure that means that we do..."). There was the very kind man who gave me free iced tea because he had already closed up the coffee shop. Then, there was the creepy guy who stalked me. He kept changing direction when I did and stopped and watched me and stuff. Creepy. Anyway, no more trouble from him.
Thursday night, we had an opening session, then we had a worship time in the atrium of the student center. The room has amazing acoustics, so it was really neat to hear everyone singing. We even drowned out the radio playing in the background. Bret and Summer Morris are here, because Bret is leading singing. It was really great to see them. Summer even remembered me from my first year of camp. The sessions were really nice yesterday. We ate dinner with some people from Delaware and Virginia Tech that Mooch knew. It was at this place called "Bubba's Home Cooking." How awesome is that? Anyway, It was very nice to be able to meet a female my age at this conference. There aren't many of those. We had a very long session at 7 that ran over into the next session. It was a bit of a tiring session, so Mooch and I skipped the artist who was there for the last session and got slushies instead. Today, we have two small classes, as well as the big sessions, so we're all trying to decide which class we want to go to.
That's all for now. Looks like it's breakfast time...later!

Texas, day 3

Texas rocks. Oh yeeeeeaaaah!
Currently, the three hoodlums are sitting around, drinking and throwing their sodas. Mooch just called me a negative person. Danny and Mooch got 2nd in the golf tournament today, though the story is that they would have won had there not been extenuating circumstances. We left Tuesday afternoon and went to Nash-vegas to stay with Danny's mom for the night. Auntie M and Uncle David came over to see me, so that was cool. We went swimming in the back yard, where I was pelted by every projectile in the pool. It felt good, though, after a hot afternoon in the car. We got up the next day and drove all day to Dallas. We are staying in a dorm at SMU. We went to a burger place called Goff's that overcharged us on burgers. We then discovered Dr. Pepper slushies at the 7/11 across the street from our dorm. I don't have a roommate yet, hopefully I don't get one. While Danny and Mooch got up and playaed golf today, Matt and I wandered around the area and did some shopping. More later about the strange people I encountered.

Matt would like to add that the water tastes like dirt.
Danny has nothing to add.
Mooch isn't listening to tell me if he wants to add anything.

We've got our opening session soon.