Remember the dude from last night? The one who insisted on sitting near me and reading and looking all stupid and chatting on the phone? I apparently am getting bad at my "leave me the crap alone" vibes, as he eventually decided to talk to me. I mean, the clear fact that I was so focused on my studying was lost on him. Every time he spoke I had to pause my music, take out my headphones (which i did with both hands for effect), and turn to say "beg pardon?", then respond, put my headphones in, turn on my music, and go back to my studies. Then, after about 30 seconds, he would do it again. I even glared every once in a while. How on earth did he not get it? When a friend came over and sat with me and I pointedly turned and talked to her, he finally apologized for having to go (huh?!?) and left.
I just wanted to share about mister get a clue.
stupid dude with the beret
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
"Hi Laura!"
I have a glass test tomorrow. A homework due in polymers Thursday. Oh, and the GRE on Friday. Yes, that's right. It's the most dreadful week of the semester so far. Thus, I have managed to find the time to blog (ie: procrastinate).
See, I have this problem. I don't like to get work done. At least not at the moment. I want anything other than to get work done. I would very much like to curl up in the corner until Friday. It's been a long week. It's Tuesday. Anyhoo... It's not that I can't handle the stress, I just don't want to handle the stress. I am currently camped out in the same spot at Spill the Beans that I've been in since 6:15. I had an entire 1/3 of the room to myself until about 30 seconds ago. Then some random dude presumed to occupy the armchair adjacent to my own sofa. He has begun to read The Odyssey, so he will probably be there for a while. As long as he stops muttering to himself, I will let him live. I won't be happy about his presence though. This is MY corner. It's like natural order. Nobody takes the chair closest to a stranger. They choose the chair at the empty table until there are no other options. Then they choose the loneliest looking person, NOT the most "leave me the heck alone" person. But then again, a normal person would not bleach their soul patch and wear a beret.
Thursday, I am going home after my field trip to sleep in my own bed. Must remember to pack pajamas. I always forget that part. GRE at noon on Friday, then back to Clemson for the rodeo. Saturday is my last home game. How sad is that?
Okay, so Mister "I'm all intellectual and crap" definitely picked the wrong place to be all learned. This is definitely not a town where poets run the coffee shops and OH GOOD GRIEF ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!? Mister dude just got up and moved to the only seat closer to me without being on the sofa with me. Thank goodness I spread out. Gosh. Anyway, he picked the wrong town. He also picked the wrong night to be anywhere near me.
And his hat is stupid.
At least I got a free smoothie. Raspberry and strawberry. Yum.
I have a glass test tomorrow. A homework due in polymers Thursday. Oh, and the GRE on Friday. Yes, that's right. It's the most dreadful week of the semester so far. Thus, I have managed to find the time to blog (ie: procrastinate).
See, I have this problem. I don't like to get work done. At least not at the moment. I want anything other than to get work done. I would very much like to curl up in the corner until Friday. It's been a long week. It's Tuesday. Anyhoo... It's not that I can't handle the stress, I just don't want to handle the stress. I am currently camped out in the same spot at Spill the Beans that I've been in since 6:15. I had an entire 1/3 of the room to myself until about 30 seconds ago. Then some random dude presumed to occupy the armchair adjacent to my own sofa. He has begun to read The Odyssey, so he will probably be there for a while. As long as he stops muttering to himself, I will let him live. I won't be happy about his presence though. This is MY corner. It's like natural order. Nobody takes the chair closest to a stranger. They choose the chair at the empty table until there are no other options. Then they choose the loneliest looking person, NOT the most "leave me the heck alone" person. But then again, a normal person would not bleach their soul patch and wear a beret.
Thursday, I am going home after my field trip to sleep in my own bed. Must remember to pack pajamas. I always forget that part. GRE at noon on Friday, then back to Clemson for the rodeo. Saturday is my last home game. How sad is that?
Okay, so Mister "I'm all intellectual and crap" definitely picked the wrong place to be all learned. This is definitely not a town where poets run the coffee shops and OH GOOD GRIEF ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!? Mister dude just got up and moved to the only seat closer to me without being on the sofa with me. Thank goodness I spread out. Gosh. Anyway, he picked the wrong town. He also picked the wrong night to be anywhere near me.
And his hat is stupid.
At least I got a free smoothie. Raspberry and strawberry. Yum.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
I am eventually going to get caught up from the semester so far. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow. After the dishes and before I pack. Yeah...I'll do it tomorrow (watch me. It'll be November before I get around to it...)! But, as my few readers (all two or three of you or however many there are) know, my life is best told in pictures. So, here is a nice one to tide you over until I write something. This is the "my hair is taking over and I can't stop it but at least I can take a picture" shot.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Okay, so my life might not be riveting, but I like to tell stories (as anyone who knows me knows), so a blog is fairly ideal.
Where was I? Oh, right. I was on my way to Detroit. So yeah. Being the boss lady of the club, I get to travel to exotic locales like Cincinnati and Detroit. So one fine day in September, Armen, Jessica, Joe and I decided to get in a large pickup truck and be the biggest rednecks to pull into the motor city.
First things first, we decided not to accidentally go to Canada. The tunnel was literally right next to the turn for our hotel. Easy mistake, right? Once we got there, we discovered that we were staying in the Ritz. Actually, it was the Marriott, but it was stinking nice. We were actually staying in the small city that is the GM World Headquarters.
It's got different towers, food, shopping (really really really nice shopping) and two Starbucks. Because one is never enough. Anyway, we got the high-class digs and decided to ask the hotel employees where to eat dinner. We ended up at this little place about 2 blocks from the hotel that looked so so so sketchy but turned out to be delicious (mad props to the chick at the concierge desk!).
Yes, I was trying to choke Joe. You know...
The next morning was a lovely 8 am meeting for Armen and myself. On the bright side, there was food and stuff. On the down side (for Armen), the apparently hot chick from Arizona sat by me and not him. Despite the letdown (he wasn't wearing his tux yet), the meeting was a success, as we actually have Keramos members at Clemson now. Wait. It turns out Mark was a member from years ago but his certificate was in the closet. Anyhoo, our member numbers are not nearly as cool as Dr. Taylor's was. 19-something. Meetings, registration, and orientations later, we came to time for Armen to kick butt at the speaking contest. He rocked it. I have video around somewhere. Despite an awesome presentation, Armen was jilted by the steel industry and denied the prize.
Myself, the rest of our delegation, and a good number of the students from the other schools all agreed that he should have won. That will have to be enough for now. Sunday night meant dinner at another recommended restaurant in Greektown.
Who knew so many Greek people were in Michigan? But man can they cook. My little Gyro-loving was extremely happy. And a big 'Opa!' for the flaming cheese thing. After this came a short ride on the people mover thinger that they call a train there.
It was time to watch nerds try to socialize. Granted, they're not so bad, but there's a reason our group is all over the Material Advantage brochure. The key, as nationals has learned, is to give them free alcohol and a DJ. We'll dance. Just you wait. Of course I am never one to give up the chance to dance, so Jessica and I joined the party, then Armen entertained us with the hammer dance.
Eventually we returned to our hotel with our feet in pain, ready for a good night's sleep, stopping to take a few pictures along the way...
Lucky for Jess and I, we didn't have to report at 7:15 am like the boys did. We got our wonderful chai lattes and meandered to the convention center for the days activities. It was a morning of technical presentations and people presenting their research on varying topics. The good news was, there were thousands of abstracts to choose from, so there was a chance that something that interested you would be there. The bad news was, there were thousands of abstracts to choose from, so you had to mire through the gigantic book to pick the interesting ones out from the rest. After lunch at another suggested restaurant (mad props in this case to the security guard in the conference center), it was time to schmooze the grad schools at a fair that was set up especially for our students. Graduate schools and industry representatives were there to talk to and ask questions and stuff. Good thing I went. I won a grad school application fee waiver from UMR. After that, I felt like a steamroller had crushed my head (I had woken up with a head cold that day), so I went and napped until time to get ready for the banquet. We students were invited/ordered to attend the American Ceramic Society's annual honors and awards banquet with the faculty. One of our wonderful professors was being honored, so we were doing him the honor of supporting him. I ended up (looking fabulous, of course) pinned between him and our department chair at the dinner. It was a delicious dinner which I had not the time to eat, as I was being bombarded on both sides about graduate schools and my plans for the future. It was an enlightening dinner and I was on cold medicine, so that made it extra fun for me. Tuesday was an early start with Jess and I having to be there for monitoring rather early in the morning. We spent the morning in presentations, then had lunch with Dr. Kennedy and went to the expo to collect free stuff. I mean, who doesn't like free stuff? After a long afternoon of monitoring/listening to old guys (really important old guys) bluster and argue about things that have been set in stone (or so I thought) since they first invented them. After changing clothes, the fantastic four headed out into Detroit to see the sights. There are not many. There was a clock on a corner that was important for some reason or another.
We discovered that most of the restaurants close really early unless you want greek food, so we tried to find this pizza place that was in our map thing. Turns out it was in the side of town (which was only a block away from the nice side of town) that one does not want to be in for long. There was 2 inch thick plexiglass between us and the employees of the restaurant. Thankfully it was still daylight out, so we headed to a little park in the business district and ate outside in the middle of Detroit.
The pizza was very good, by the way. Joe held on to that soda bottle for the rest of the night.
We may or may not have been yelled at to get off of the fountain. Apparently people don't have any fun in Detroit. We decided to stay on the street we were on (since it seemed nice enough) and walk to the other side of town...or maybe only 5 blocks away.
We saw the Tigers' stadium and Ford Field and some cool looking churches, then we made our way to the People Mover station and waited for the train.
There was an old dude reading the paper in the corner and he was nice enough to share it with Joe while I looked for the train.
We rode the train and enjoyed the overhead view of the city all the way back to the hotel. May have had a little too much fun, but hey, we had the thing to ourself.
The next morning, I happily loaded up on Sudafed and packed the mondo-truck up to head home. Armen rocks for driving all the way too and from Michigan, so he gets his thanks here.
Where was I? Oh, right. I was on my way to Detroit. So yeah. Being the boss lady of the club, I get to travel to exotic locales like Cincinnati and Detroit. So one fine day in September, Armen, Jessica, Joe and I decided to get in a large pickup truck and be the biggest rednecks to pull into the motor city.
First things first, we decided not to accidentally go to Canada. The tunnel was literally right next to the turn for our hotel. Easy mistake, right? Once we got there, we discovered that we were staying in the Ritz. Actually, it was the Marriott, but it was stinking nice. We were actually staying in the small city that is the GM World Headquarters.
It's got different towers, food, shopping (really really really nice shopping) and two Starbucks. Because one is never enough. Anyway, we got the high-class digs and decided to ask the hotel employees where to eat dinner. We ended up at this little place about 2 blocks from the hotel that looked so so so sketchy but turned out to be delicious (mad props to the chick at the concierge desk!).
Yes, I was trying to choke Joe. You know...
The next morning was a lovely 8 am meeting for Armen and myself. On the bright side, there was food and stuff. On the down side (for Armen), the apparently hot chick from Arizona sat by me and not him. Despite the letdown (he wasn't wearing his tux yet), the meeting was a success, as we actually have Keramos members at Clemson now. Wait. It turns out Mark was a member from years ago but his certificate was in the closet. Anyhoo, our member numbers are not nearly as cool as Dr. Taylor's was. 19-something. Meetings, registration, and orientations later, we came to time for Armen to kick butt at the speaking contest. He rocked it. I have video around somewhere. Despite an awesome presentation, Armen was jilted by the steel industry and denied the prize.
Myself, the rest of our delegation, and a good number of the students from the other schools all agreed that he should have won. That will have to be enough for now. Sunday night meant dinner at another recommended restaurant in Greektown.
Who knew so many Greek people were in Michigan? But man can they cook. My little Gyro-loving was extremely happy. And a big 'Opa!' for the flaming cheese thing. After this came a short ride on the people mover thinger that they call a train there.
It was time to watch nerds try to socialize. Granted, they're not so bad, but there's a reason our group is all over the Material Advantage brochure. The key, as nationals has learned, is to give them free alcohol and a DJ. We'll dance. Just you wait. Of course I am never one to give up the chance to dance, so Jessica and I joined the party, then Armen entertained us with the hammer dance.
Eventually we returned to our hotel with our feet in pain, ready for a good night's sleep, stopping to take a few pictures along the way...
Lucky for Jess and I, we didn't have to report at 7:15 am like the boys did. We got our wonderful chai lattes and meandered to the convention center for the days activities. It was a morning of technical presentations and people presenting their research on varying topics. The good news was, there were thousands of abstracts to choose from, so there was a chance that something that interested you would be there. The bad news was, there were thousands of abstracts to choose from, so you had to mire through the gigantic book to pick the interesting ones out from the rest. After lunch at another suggested restaurant (mad props in this case to the security guard in the conference center), it was time to schmooze the grad schools at a fair that was set up especially for our students. Graduate schools and industry representatives were there to talk to and ask questions and stuff. Good thing I went. I won a grad school application fee waiver from UMR. After that, I felt like a steamroller had crushed my head (I had woken up with a head cold that day), so I went and napped until time to get ready for the banquet. We students were invited/ordered to attend the American Ceramic Society's annual honors and awards banquet with the faculty. One of our wonderful professors was being honored, so we were doing him the honor of supporting him. I ended up (looking fabulous, of course) pinned between him and our department chair at the dinner. It was a delicious dinner which I had not the time to eat, as I was being bombarded on both sides about graduate schools and my plans for the future. It was an enlightening dinner and I was on cold medicine, so that made it extra fun for me. Tuesday was an early start with Jess and I having to be there for monitoring rather early in the morning. We spent the morning in presentations, then had lunch with Dr. Kennedy and went to the expo to collect free stuff. I mean, who doesn't like free stuff? After a long afternoon of monitoring/listening to old guys (really important old guys) bluster and argue about things that have been set in stone (or so I thought) since they first invented them. After changing clothes, the fantastic four headed out into Detroit to see the sights. There are not many. There was a clock on a corner that was important for some reason or another.
We discovered that most of the restaurants close really early unless you want greek food, so we tried to find this pizza place that was in our map thing. Turns out it was in the side of town (which was only a block away from the nice side of town) that one does not want to be in for long. There was 2 inch thick plexiglass between us and the employees of the restaurant. Thankfully it was still daylight out, so we headed to a little park in the business district and ate outside in the middle of Detroit.
The pizza was very good, by the way. Joe held on to that soda bottle for the rest of the night.
We may or may not have been yelled at to get off of the fountain. Apparently people don't have any fun in Detroit. We decided to stay on the street we were on (since it seemed nice enough) and walk to the other side of town...or maybe only 5 blocks away.
We saw the Tigers' stadium and Ford Field and some cool looking churches, then we made our way to the People Mover station and waited for the train.
There was an old dude reading the paper in the corner and he was nice enough to share it with Joe while I looked for the train.
We rode the train and enjoyed the overhead view of the city all the way back to the hotel. May have had a little too much fun, but hey, we had the thing to ourself.
The next morning, I happily loaded up on Sudafed and packed the mondo-truck up to head home. Armen rocks for driving all the way too and from Michigan, so he gets his thanks here.
at a loss for a title...
It appears to be October. Since when did that happen? I have thoroughly let G-ma down by not updating the blog regularly. I suppose once in a while is good enough, right?
Let's see...last blog ended with the Burka girls on a trek to the beach. We had fun. Took lots of pictures. Cause we're fabulous like that.

At the end of the summer, we had the French guys over for tacos. Thought I'd make them some really American food.
Mo moved in to Clemson and we hanged out and stuff. We went to the Bowman Block Party and got our picture with the guy with pretty eyes.
School is school and rather boring, so I'm not going to talk about it. Skipping over school, it's time for football!
Before the FSU game, Olivia and I went to see the band preview show.
Randi and I are taking our pictures for the coasters on our coffee table so we don't have to have AIDS coasters anymore.
Julie and I at the parade! Yayyy!
Shelly and I also at the parade. We almost managed to stop laughing for the picture.
My favorite Balderstons. My only Balderstons, but they don't know that...
Julie and Stabler got hold of my camera after the parade. The rest of the pictures were creepy ones of me...
Football game was good. We won. Yay!
Amy and I went with Olivia and Shelly. Basically, it was a girls' party at the football game!
Got to see the drumline play after the game. Woooo!
This is everyone rushing the field...for the third time. It took the refs a while to actually declare the game over.
I got to wear the hat thinger. Yay! Like my orange overalls?
The next weekend was the Louisiana-Monroe game. It was really really hot out. I opted not to wear the overalls so I wouldn't die of heat stroke. This is Molly, Ashley, myself (duh), and Shelly at the Crosspoint tailgate.
Shelly, Julie and I at the game...
Olivia and I did Paul's hair. It was a masterpiece.
And the rest of the marvelous drumline...
We went to Greenville to see Olivia's friend's band play, then we went out for sushi afterward. This is Paul looking like a walrus and Olivia looking fabulous as usual.
Due to the sheer length of this post, I am going to leave off here and come back with stories about the trip to Detroit and the loss to Virginia Tech and my coming trip to K-town...
Let's see...last blog ended with the Burka girls on a trek to the beach. We had fun. Took lots of pictures. Cause we're fabulous like that.

At the end of the summer, we had the French guys over for tacos. Thought I'd make them some really American food.
Mo moved in to Clemson and we hanged out and stuff. We went to the Bowman Block Party and got our picture with the guy with pretty eyes.
School is school and rather boring, so I'm not going to talk about it. Skipping over school, it's time for football!Before the FSU game, Olivia and I went to see the band preview show.
Randi and I are taking our pictures for the coasters on our coffee table so we don't have to have AIDS coasters anymore.
Julie and I at the parade! Yayyy!
Shelly and I also at the parade. We almost managed to stop laughing for the picture.
My favorite Balderstons. My only Balderstons, but they don't know that...
Julie and Stabler got hold of my camera after the parade. The rest of the pictures were creepy ones of me...
Football game was good. We won. Yay!
Amy and I went with Olivia and Shelly. Basically, it was a girls' party at the football game!
Got to see the drumline play after the game. Woooo!
This is everyone rushing the field...for the third time. It took the refs a while to actually declare the game over.
I got to wear the hat thinger. Yay! Like my orange overalls?
The next weekend was the Louisiana-Monroe game. It was really really hot out. I opted not to wear the overalls so I wouldn't die of heat stroke. This is Molly, Ashley, myself (duh), and Shelly at the Crosspoint tailgate.
Shelly, Julie and I at the game...
Olivia and I did Paul's hair. It was a masterpiece.
And the rest of the marvelous drumline...
We went to Greenville to see Olivia's friend's band play, then we went out for sushi afterward. This is Paul looking like a walrus and Olivia looking fabulous as usual.
Due to the sheer length of this post, I am going to leave off here and come back with stories about the trip to Detroit and the loss to Virginia Tech and my coming trip to K-town...
Monday, July 30, 2007
And I do mean lazy.
I mean, I'm obviously too lazy to have posted anything about the summer so far. Except the day I had writers' block. It took me another 3 weeks or so to write that paper, just for the record, as I wasn't given a deadline until just before we went to Ohio. It was a killer paper, as in it rocked. I just hope it wasn't so good that they make me write another one.
I am now going to attempt to summarize my summer in one post. It should be quite boring for all of you.
The first week of June was spent at the beach. It was quite fun. We had G-ma and G-pa and Aunt Rose and Sam and Uncle Paul and Dad and Mom and Amy and I there. We went to Ocracoke out on the Outer Banks and had a lovely time. We had bikes and rode around being all cute and stuff. There were crabs and a lighthouse and o'cokers. I have put these pictures up either on my facebook photos or on my picasa photos (mentioned in a previous post), so go look at them there and save me some time.
Lots of work after that. For those who have no clue what I've been doing this summer, I am working in a research group at Clemson. Working with glass and all that that entails. It has been lovely. Maybe not, but at least I can almost say that with a straight face. I look at it like this: as annoying as working with certain people can be, it is an excellent experience to have research under my belt. I will have my name on different projects and will look a lot better on paper. There. My summer work has been justified. Here are some pictures of work and work people and stuff...
This was everyone on my birthday...That's why there are TWO cakes in front of me.
This is at Ankit's poster presentation. Ankit was one of the high schoolers we had. He rocks because he has the same birthday as I do.
This is a piece of my glass. Yeah. Little bitty. I wish the picture with my finger in it was on my computer. I would show you that instead.
Now, on to more interesting stuff. Work was lovely. Lots and lots of work. Not much to shout about. Went to Ohio the weekend before my birthday with Olivia and Andrew to see our favorite Paul Berger. We drove up on Friday, saw Jesus a lot, and we found peace on the way...
When we got there, we swam and ate pizza and the awesome cake his Grandmother made for me...
I mean, how many of YOU can say you had your last name on a birthday cake? Saturday, we went on the boat Paul works on and went to the cute little islands and stuff...


We tried to see how many people we could fit on one twin bed too while we were at it.
Sunday, we went out on the boat and just generally chilled (and got really sunburned too!)...
I was really boring on Sunday night and I worked on the aforementioned stupid paper. I got it done though! Yay!
Monday was Cedar Point. I would like to thank Paul and the random coincidence of knowing Paul that allowed me to fulfill one of my life goals of riding the freaking tall roller coaster there. Not to mention all of the other ones too.

On the way home on Tuesday, we totally found Peace again, not to mention the future (which I totally didn't get a picture of, so nobody will ever believe us) and Bland Virginia.
I went home Tuesday night and got my fabulous harry potter birthday banner.
Oh and my copy of the book. I got a fabulous necklace from mommy and daddy and some earrings from Amy and some other stuff. After work I went to dinner with the girls at Olive Garden where we flirted shamelessly with the waiter.
Randi moves in with me tomorrow, then I'm going to the beach with Mom and Amy this weekend. School starts in like 3 weeks or something, so people are starting to come back to Clemson soon. Yay!
I mean, I'm obviously too lazy to have posted anything about the summer so far. Except the day I had writers' block. It took me another 3 weeks or so to write that paper, just for the record, as I wasn't given a deadline until just before we went to Ohio. It was a killer paper, as in it rocked. I just hope it wasn't so good that they make me write another one.
I am now going to attempt to summarize my summer in one post. It should be quite boring for all of you.
The first week of June was spent at the beach. It was quite fun. We had G-ma and G-pa and Aunt Rose and Sam and Uncle Paul and Dad and Mom and Amy and I there. We went to Ocracoke out on the Outer Banks and had a lovely time. We had bikes and rode around being all cute and stuff. There were crabs and a lighthouse and o'cokers. I have put these pictures up either on my facebook photos or on my picasa photos (mentioned in a previous post), so go look at them there and save me some time.
Lots of work after that. For those who have no clue what I've been doing this summer, I am working in a research group at Clemson. Working with glass and all that that entails. It has been lovely. Maybe not, but at least I can almost say that with a straight face. I look at it like this: as annoying as working with certain people can be, it is an excellent experience to have research under my belt. I will have my name on different projects and will look a lot better on paper. There. My summer work has been justified. Here are some pictures of work and work people and stuff...
This is a piece of my glass. Yeah. Little bitty. I wish the picture with my finger in it was on my computer. I would show you that instead.Now, on to more interesting stuff. Work was lovely. Lots and lots of work. Not much to shout about. Went to Ohio the weekend before my birthday with Olivia and Andrew to see our favorite Paul Berger. We drove up on Friday, saw Jesus a lot, and we found peace on the way...
When we got there, we swam and ate pizza and the awesome cake his Grandmother made for me...
I mean, how many of YOU can say you had your last name on a birthday cake? Saturday, we went on the boat Paul works on and went to the cute little islands and stuff...


We tried to see how many people we could fit on one twin bed too while we were at it.Sunday, we went out on the boat and just generally chilled (and got really sunburned too!)...

I was really boring on Sunday night and I worked on the aforementioned stupid paper. I got it done though! Yay!Monday was Cedar Point. I would like to thank Paul and the random coincidence of knowing Paul that allowed me to fulfill one of my life goals of riding the freaking tall roller coaster there. Not to mention all of the other ones too.


On the way home on Tuesday, we totally found Peace again, not to mention the future (which I totally didn't get a picture of, so nobody will ever believe us) and Bland Virginia.
I went home Tuesday night and got my fabulous harry potter birthday banner.
Oh and my copy of the book. I got a fabulous necklace from mommy and daddy and some earrings from Amy and some other stuff. After work I went to dinner with the girls at Olive Garden where we flirted shamelessly with the waiter.
Randi moves in with me tomorrow, then I'm going to the beach with Mom and Amy this weekend. School starts in like 3 weeks or something, so people are starting to come back to Clemson soon. Yay!
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