Well, I'm sitting here, waiting for dad to pay up. He's been a betting man the last few days. Amy made a bet with him yesterday that she and mom could make it to and from Clemson just fine, despite the weather. Amy won. I made a bet over breakfast that the power would be on today. I won. Clearly, since I'm on the computer. I think he should give up betting.
It was a bit cold last night without power, but Amy and I shared my big fluffy warm bed. My cell phone is out of commission, because it won't charge, and the new one won't come until Tuesday. I need the power to last long enough to save over my contacts. Shouldn't be too hard. It's all saved on my computer, but it's a bit distressing. On the other hand, it's nice to be out of things for a while, what with the no power, no internet, no cell phone thing we had.
I'm working on a scarf (my yarn for my sweater is on back order). I would so love to get working on my sweater already, but I'll live. Clearly, excitement is the name of the game at the Burka house. That's for sure.
Icy Times on Montverde
Monday, November 16, 2009
I gave blood this afternoon with Mom and the Mo. It's the annual Clemson vs. Carolina blood drive, so we had to go feed the vampires. Been busy lately. I submitted my NSF proposal last week, and I have my qualifier proposal due next week. I've been so busy writing that I haven't been in the lab to actually do anything in a while. I DID have time to dress up for Halloween though! Then, the Wednesday after that, they showed the latest Harry Potter movie on campus, and had a costume contest with it. So, I recycled my Snitch costume and a few girls from work dressed up too. We ended up being the only 3 people dressed up, so it isn't too hard to believe that I won. Now, the cool thing is that I won a 22" flatscreen tv. How cool is that?!?
The weather has been awesome lately, so Chris and I went driving in the mountains to enjoy it. Yes, we're turning into my parents. Speaking of driving, I've been learning to drive Chris' car (since dad was always afraid to teach us), and I got all the way to fourth gear the other night. Yay me!
We also got time to go to the zoo, which was fun. There were giraffes! And lots of other animals, but there were giraffes, which are new to the teensy zoo.
Thanksgiving is next week. G-ma and G-pa are coming to visit. Well, I'm going up to get them and bring them back, but you get the idea. I don't know why I'm talking as though they aren't my only readers...
Pictures!
The weather has been awesome lately, so Chris and I went driving in the mountains to enjoy it. Yes, we're turning into my parents. Speaking of driving, I've been learning to drive Chris' car (since dad was always afraid to teach us), and I got all the way to fourth gear the other night. Yay me!
We also got time to go to the zoo, which was fun. There were giraffes! And lots of other animals, but there were giraffes, which are new to the teensy zoo.
Thanksgiving is next week. G-ma and G-pa are coming to visit. Well, I'm going up to get them and bring them back, but you get the idea. I don't know why I'm talking as though they aren't my only readers...
Pictures!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Seriously. My lips taste like cream soda. We have been saving our dum dum wrappers (we go through a LOT of them) and sending off for dum dum stuff. Our lip glosses came today, so we passed them out and I got cream soda.
I'm completely and utterly exhausted. I think I'll hold off on writing this post until I can think straight. Especially considering how many spelling mistakes I'm having to correct here...
________
Break's Over!
I am STILL so tired I can't think straight, but I wanted to finish this post. I at least have food in my system. And now I'm watching Donnie Darko. Should go well with the fact that I'm already kinda nuts at the moment. Haven't seen this one in forever. Ooh! I need to upload pictures so I can put up a slideshow. BRB!
________
So BRB was like 2 hours. It takes a while to collect and edit 6 months worth of photos. So this afternoon, I left work and went to Chris', then headed over to pick up Ozaria. She and I rocked some Michael Jackson (PYT!) on the way to the park, where we read our book, then played some football (man that girl has an arm. nearly took my head out), then I took her home.
Anyhoo, I just got back from Pittsburgh, where I was at the MS&T 2009 Conference. Before I get to that, perhaps I'll mention the rest of the semester and the summer. Julie Andrews always says let's start at the very beginning.
At the end of the school year, we had a church picnic down by the lake. Great fun, that. Got some awesome pictures of some friends. Slideshow!
Amy and I joined the official church softball team fan club again this year. Amy made a sign that said "good hustle" on it, because that's what we say when they're losing. It's a joke. Also in this batch, picture from the Fourth and from MRS volunteering in downtown Greenville.
Out of the blue, Mom and Chris and I decided to join Aunt Rose, Uncle Paul, G-ma, G-pa, Zach, Stacy, Wendy, and Andrew at the Outer Banks for a few days over the weekend of my birthday. Quite fun. Got to be all lazy and get a tan and I made myself a sandcastle birthday cake with the assistance of Chris and the verbal engineering advice from G-pa. Because, of course, it had to be a perfectly engineered castle with water added at the right times. Before that, we went to the Wright Brothers Nat'l Memorial. Very cool.
In August, we had a bridal shower for Julie just before the start of school. MRS had a welcome back picnic that was quite a success if you ask me. Football, always awesome. We've had an up-and-down season, but the home games have ALL been rainy. I suppose it's better than sweating like pigs and approaching heat exhaustion, but I don't like being wet and cold either. Maybe this week will be drier.
We had a surprise 40th birthday party for Drew, one of the guys at the lab. It was carnival themed and we had a tiger bouncy house for the occasion. Awesome party.
Julie, my best friend since what seems like forever, but for like 5 years in reality, got married in September. For what it's worth, I approve of Jeff. He rocks, despite the hard time he gives me. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in this wedding, and it was really amazing to see these two families come together around Jeff and Julie with love and prayer. I already adore Julie's family, who were a complete blast to see again. I have to admit, I was sad to have to go at the end of it all. At least I got to do plenty of dancing! :)
And finally, here's my most recent adventure, my trip to Pittsburgh. As part of my role in the PCSA, I had to attend the conference to be a part of an officers' meeting. I flew up on Saturday and watched Clemson beat Miami on my laptop (actually, I missed the end, but that's not the point), then had dinner with an old friend (thanks Mooch!) in town. I was staying with Victoria and Clair, fellow PCSA-ers, across from the place the Penguins play. Meetings bright and early Sunday morning were surprisingly productive. We "conferenced" Eric in at the crack of dawn in Oregon and got right down to business. Then we sat in on the Volunteer Leadership Meeting, which was an amazing chance to meet people, make ourselves visible, and share what we need from ACerS. It turns out that we were on the same page, but it's always good to say it again, right? Sunday afternoon was the student speaking contest, where a Clemson student got 2nd place. Sunday night, I had dinner with Dr. Ballato and the Clemson undergrads. Pumpkin tortellini. It was muy delicioso. After that was the student mixer. What a blast. When I went to my first MS&T in 2006, nobody danced. Now, EVERYONE dances. Even the president of ACerS. Like I said, we all know I love to bust a move, even if it's a dorky move. Monday was a group tour of Anter Corp., then we went to some talks, followed by a quick break before it was time for the ACerS Honors and Awards Banquet. This year they had a magician or whatever he called himself perform at the end. He supposedly bent a wine glass with his mind. I'm not sure if I believe it. We have the glass though. There's a picture of it somewhere in the slideshow. After the banquet, we had folks over to our hotel to hang out, before we all realized it was 1am. The next morning, I woke up rather annoyingly at 4:30am. I couldn't sleep, so I eventually got up at 6, got bagels, and wandered to the conference center for my morning shift at Mini Materials Camp (I put the mini in mini materials camp!). It's where local students come to see different stations do demos about materials. At our station, we did light and fluorescence demos as well as freezing a bunch of stuff in liquid nitrogen and breaking it, etc. After that, I headed to the airport. I had to get there way early because of my ride's schedule. I spent the time in a variety of ways and then headed to my gate. My plane got moved to another gate, so we went there, at which point our flight was delayed. It was pouring in Atlanta. So we finally took off and I was enjoying a half-nap (I wasn't really asleep), when we started hitting turbulence. Then, half an hour outside ATL, we hit the kind of turbulence that rises and falls. Not fun. I did, however, meet the nicest man, whose daughter is coming to Clemson to work with the Navs next year. And we had an empty seat between us. We FINALLY landed, an hour late, and I went to baggage claim. It was probably half an hour before our bags came out. I kinda contemplated crying in the airport because I was so exhausted and frustrated. Dad picked me up and we headed home in the not very nice rain. I had to stay awake to keep him awake, so I told him stories about the weekend, but I talk fast, so I ran out of stories. Then I turned on the radio and hummed along to stay awake. At one point, I started mumble-singing along to American Pie, only to stop and fall asleep in 10-second spurts, during which I would have a really short dream that was very vivid, and after which I would wake up and start singing again. We made it home at 12:30. Dad probably got home at around 1:15. Poor dad. I ended up having a 20+ hour day. No fun. Slept in this morning, went to work, and here I am. Picture time! I made these bigger...
TTFN! Hopefully I'll post more regularly this year. I do like to blog. I just forget.
This weekend, I'm being a sparkly golden snitch for Halloween. I'm excited. Chris'll be Sheldon.
I'm completely and utterly exhausted. I think I'll hold off on writing this post until I can think straight. Especially considering how many spelling mistakes I'm having to correct here...
________
Break's Over!
I am STILL so tired I can't think straight, but I wanted to finish this post. I at least have food in my system. And now I'm watching Donnie Darko. Should go well with the fact that I'm already kinda nuts at the moment. Haven't seen this one in forever. Ooh! I need to upload pictures so I can put up a slideshow. BRB!
________
So BRB was like 2 hours. It takes a while to collect and edit 6 months worth of photos. So this afternoon, I left work and went to Chris', then headed over to pick up Ozaria. She and I rocked some Michael Jackson (PYT!) on the way to the park, where we read our book, then played some football (man that girl has an arm. nearly took my head out), then I took her home.
Anyhoo, I just got back from Pittsburgh, where I was at the MS&T 2009 Conference. Before I get to that, perhaps I'll mention the rest of the semester and the summer. Julie Andrews always says let's start at the very beginning.
At the end of the school year, we had a church picnic down by the lake. Great fun, that. Got some awesome pictures of some friends. Slideshow!
Amy and I joined the official church softball team fan club again this year. Amy made a sign that said "good hustle" on it, because that's what we say when they're losing. It's a joke. Also in this batch, picture from the Fourth and from MRS volunteering in downtown Greenville.
Out of the blue, Mom and Chris and I decided to join Aunt Rose, Uncle Paul, G-ma, G-pa, Zach, Stacy, Wendy, and Andrew at the Outer Banks for a few days over the weekend of my birthday. Quite fun. Got to be all lazy and get a tan and I made myself a sandcastle birthday cake with the assistance of Chris and the verbal engineering advice from G-pa. Because, of course, it had to be a perfectly engineered castle with water added at the right times. Before that, we went to the Wright Brothers Nat'l Memorial. Very cool.
In August, we had a bridal shower for Julie just before the start of school. MRS had a welcome back picnic that was quite a success if you ask me. Football, always awesome. We've had an up-and-down season, but the home games have ALL been rainy. I suppose it's better than sweating like pigs and approaching heat exhaustion, but I don't like being wet and cold either. Maybe this week will be drier.
We had a surprise 40th birthday party for Drew, one of the guys at the lab. It was carnival themed and we had a tiger bouncy house for the occasion. Awesome party.
Julie, my best friend since what seems like forever, but for like 5 years in reality, got married in September. For what it's worth, I approve of Jeff. He rocks, despite the hard time he gives me. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in this wedding, and it was really amazing to see these two families come together around Jeff and Julie with love and prayer. I already adore Julie's family, who were a complete blast to see again. I have to admit, I was sad to have to go at the end of it all. At least I got to do plenty of dancing! :)
And finally, here's my most recent adventure, my trip to Pittsburgh. As part of my role in the PCSA, I had to attend the conference to be a part of an officers' meeting. I flew up on Saturday and watched Clemson beat Miami on my laptop (actually, I missed the end, but that's not the point), then had dinner with an old friend (thanks Mooch!) in town. I was staying with Victoria and Clair, fellow PCSA-ers, across from the place the Penguins play. Meetings bright and early Sunday morning were surprisingly productive. We "conferenced" Eric in at the crack of dawn in Oregon and got right down to business. Then we sat in on the Volunteer Leadership Meeting, which was an amazing chance to meet people, make ourselves visible, and share what we need from ACerS. It turns out that we were on the same page, but it's always good to say it again, right? Sunday afternoon was the student speaking contest, where a Clemson student got 2nd place. Sunday night, I had dinner with Dr. Ballato and the Clemson undergrads. Pumpkin tortellini. It was muy delicioso. After that was the student mixer. What a blast. When I went to my first MS&T in 2006, nobody danced. Now, EVERYONE dances. Even the president of ACerS. Like I said, we all know I love to bust a move, even if it's a dorky move. Monday was a group tour of Anter Corp., then we went to some talks, followed by a quick break before it was time for the ACerS Honors and Awards Banquet. This year they had a magician or whatever he called himself perform at the end. He supposedly bent a wine glass with his mind. I'm not sure if I believe it. We have the glass though. There's a picture of it somewhere in the slideshow. After the banquet, we had folks over to our hotel to hang out, before we all realized it was 1am. The next morning, I woke up rather annoyingly at 4:30am. I couldn't sleep, so I eventually got up at 6, got bagels, and wandered to the conference center for my morning shift at Mini Materials Camp (I put the mini in mini materials camp!). It's where local students come to see different stations do demos about materials. At our station, we did light and fluorescence demos as well as freezing a bunch of stuff in liquid nitrogen and breaking it, etc. After that, I headed to the airport. I had to get there way early because of my ride's schedule. I spent the time in a variety of ways and then headed to my gate. My plane got moved to another gate, so we went there, at which point our flight was delayed. It was pouring in Atlanta. So we finally took off and I was enjoying a half-nap (I wasn't really asleep), when we started hitting turbulence. Then, half an hour outside ATL, we hit the kind of turbulence that rises and falls. Not fun. I did, however, meet the nicest man, whose daughter is coming to Clemson to work with the Navs next year. And we had an empty seat between us. We FINALLY landed, an hour late, and I went to baggage claim. It was probably half an hour before our bags came out. I kinda contemplated crying in the airport because I was so exhausted and frustrated. Dad picked me up and we headed home in the not very nice rain. I had to stay awake to keep him awake, so I told him stories about the weekend, but I talk fast, so I ran out of stories. Then I turned on the radio and hummed along to stay awake. At one point, I started mumble-singing along to American Pie, only to stop and fall asleep in 10-second spurts, during which I would have a really short dream that was very vivid, and after which I would wake up and start singing again. We made it home at 12:30. Dad probably got home at around 1:15. Poor dad. I ended up having a 20+ hour day. No fun. Slept in this morning, went to work, and here I am. Picture time! I made these bigger...
TTFN! Hopefully I'll post more regularly this year. I do like to blog. I just forget.
This weekend, I'm being a sparkly golden snitch for Halloween. I'm excited. Chris'll be Sheldon.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Rain. We finally get rain and boy do we get a lot of it. Amy and I are going backpacking with Chris and a few folks from Greenville this weekend. It's supposed to rain the entire time.
It's May. Happy May 19th. It's 1 week until Chris' birthday, 6 days until Mom's birthday, one month until Mom and Dad's anniversary (27th). I keep track of dates based on their vicinity to important dates. This time of year, it's very easy. Most stuff circulates around Mom's birthday in my head.
Since it's May, I suppose it's time for a quick recap. I'm not doing so hot at the blog these days. I don't do anything that I feel is blog-worthy. I did well in my classes this semester. Hopefully, there will be no cause for me to need to take any more classes ever. Since I'm done with classes, I'm in the lab full-time now. I am still in the learning stage, since much of this stuff is very new to me, though still vaguely related to my old work. I learned to make sol-gel today. Don't ask me what it is. Or what it does.
The biggest thing I had this semester was the conference I mentioned at the end of the last post. Here are a few pictures from the week.
The conference was a big success and the group (the PCSA: ACerS President's Council of Student Advisors) hit the ground running again. I'm the 2009 Recruitment Chair, which means I've been reading a lot of resumes lately. We are hoping to get a good group of students this year. If you want to know more about what this PCSA thing is, feel free to ask me or check out my previous post about it.
In relation to ACerS, I have an article in this month's issue of the Bulletin. Check it out! Page 58.
Last week, Mom and Amy and I went shopping through Atlanta and then spent a few days in Callaway Gardens. The horticulture center there was way stinking cool. And the bike trails were very nice, though they were rather hilly. The spa gets 3 thumbs up.
Chris is teaching me how to play golf. Should be hilarious. All I've done is chip in his backyard, since the rain has gotten in our way.
We had some crazy cool snow in Clemson back at the first of March. My friend Kelsey had a baby (Judah) in February. I went to Charleston and did the Bridge Run with our friend Bonnie at the first of April. Chris and I went to the rather rainy opening Braves game (getting the rain theme?). The last pictures in the slide show below are of Ozaria, my 8-year-old mentee. She and I were taking pictures for her mom's birthday. We went to see Hannah Mondana: The Movie. She was quite thrilled with herself.
That's all I've got. I have to go stir something in the lab.
It's May. Happy May 19th. It's 1 week until Chris' birthday, 6 days until Mom's birthday, one month until Mom and Dad's anniversary (27th). I keep track of dates based on their vicinity to important dates. This time of year, it's very easy. Most stuff circulates around Mom's birthday in my head.
Since it's May, I suppose it's time for a quick recap. I'm not doing so hot at the blog these days. I don't do anything that I feel is blog-worthy. I did well in my classes this semester. Hopefully, there will be no cause for me to need to take any more classes ever. Since I'm done with classes, I'm in the lab full-time now. I am still in the learning stage, since much of this stuff is very new to me, though still vaguely related to my old work. I learned to make sol-gel today. Don't ask me what it is. Or what it does.
The biggest thing I had this semester was the conference I mentioned at the end of the last post. Here are a few pictures from the week.
The conference was a big success and the group (the PCSA: ACerS President's Council of Student Advisors) hit the ground running again. I'm the 2009 Recruitment Chair, which means I've been reading a lot of resumes lately. We are hoping to get a good group of students this year. If you want to know more about what this PCSA thing is, feel free to ask me or check out my previous post about it.
In relation to ACerS, I have an article in this month's issue of the Bulletin. Check it out! Page 58.
Last week, Mom and Amy and I went shopping through Atlanta and then spent a few days in Callaway Gardens. The horticulture center there was way stinking cool. And the bike trails were very nice, though they were rather hilly. The spa gets 3 thumbs up.
Chris is teaching me how to play golf. Should be hilarious. All I've done is chip in his backyard, since the rain has gotten in our way.
We had some crazy cool snow in Clemson back at the first of March. My friend Kelsey had a baby (Judah) in February. I went to Charleston and did the Bridge Run with our friend Bonnie at the first of April. Chris and I went to the rather rainy opening Braves game (getting the rain theme?). The last pictures in the slide show below are of Ozaria, my 8-year-old mentee. She and I were taking pictures for her mom's birthday. We went to see Hannah Mondana: The Movie. She was quite thrilled with herself.
That's all I've got. I have to go stir something in the lab.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
I just finished breaking in my new red KitchenAid mixer (Ginger chocolate chip bars. I can't begin to tell you how amazing they smell.) and thought I'd take the time to greet the world wide web. It's January 8, first day of classes for me. I've got plenty going on, so there is plenty to talk about. I guess I should start with a rundown of the past semester...
Classes went well. I got an A in Kinetics (Part 1) and a B in Thermodynamics. I have to maintain a 3.2 to stay in the program, so I'm set (as long as I don't fail this semester, which I don't anticipate doing). The lab I was teaching went well. We've got new materials (more to work with) this semester, so my section in particular should be more interesting to the students. We have the challenging task of entertaining both Materials students and Bioengineering students. The BioE students are in a materials concentration, but none of them seem to understand why a basic understanding of materials science is important. Thus we've given them a goal of applying the materials to their choice of a set of medical applications, selecting a material based on the results of their experiments. Hopefully they'll all realize that it's a trick, as none of the materials are remotely close to medical grade.
I went up to visit Amy over fall break. We went to Philadelphia to see Coldplay, which was one of Amy's life goals. I guess you could say she was pretty happy about it. We went up to NYC one day, which was a surprise to me, since Amy didn't hand me my ticket until we were on the train platform. It was a 3-hour ride that was pretty smooth, all-in-all. We put on our headphones and zoned out for most of the trip. By coincidence, it happened to be the morning of the ING New York City Marathon, which (of course) Uncle David was running. Our train came into Penn Station, so we took a cab up to the Metropolitan Museum and spent the morning wandering around and seeing what we felt like seeing. There's a marble statue in the slideshow called the "Hand of God" by Rodin. It's worth noticing. My new favorite. After lunch in the museum cafe, Amy and I headed around to the back of the building to watch for Uncle David. We managed to end up right across the course from Aunt Melissa. Once we yelled and screamed for Uncle David, we wandered to the road under the park and met up to wait for him with Auntie M. We never got to see him, because the exit chute took a while and we had a time limit on our day, so we gave up and headed downtown, to the corner of the park, for some shopping. We shopped our way down 5th Ave that afternoon, then wandered over to Times Square to take some pictures. Amy haggled with a rickshaw driver and managed to get us a ride back to the station with plenty of time to spare. Some pictures of this, then I'll talk about the rest of the semester...
The rest of the semester was fairly uneventful. We had Amy home for Thanksgiving, so I got the task of carving the Tofurkey (pictured in the slideshow). I came back to Clemson on Saturday for the Carolina game, which we actually won! Yay! Here are some Thanksgiving pictures...
We finished out the semester a week later. I have been home for the entire break. It was nice to be there for that long. I'm certainly ready for school again now. I've got another slideshow for you now...Christmas pictures...
That's all for now! I'm working away on plans for a conference I'm going to next weekend. I leave on Friday and I'll be gone until Wednesday. I'm sure I'll have some pictures from Florida when I get back. Until then...
Classes went well. I got an A in Kinetics (Part 1) and a B in Thermodynamics. I have to maintain a 3.2 to stay in the program, so I'm set (as long as I don't fail this semester, which I don't anticipate doing). The lab I was teaching went well. We've got new materials (more to work with) this semester, so my section in particular should be more interesting to the students. We have the challenging task of entertaining both Materials students and Bioengineering students. The BioE students are in a materials concentration, but none of them seem to understand why a basic understanding of materials science is important. Thus we've given them a goal of applying the materials to their choice of a set of medical applications, selecting a material based on the results of their experiments. Hopefully they'll all realize that it's a trick, as none of the materials are remotely close to medical grade.
I went up to visit Amy over fall break. We went to Philadelphia to see Coldplay, which was one of Amy's life goals. I guess you could say she was pretty happy about it. We went up to NYC one day, which was a surprise to me, since Amy didn't hand me my ticket until we were on the train platform. It was a 3-hour ride that was pretty smooth, all-in-all. We put on our headphones and zoned out for most of the trip. By coincidence, it happened to be the morning of the ING New York City Marathon, which (of course) Uncle David was running. Our train came into Penn Station, so we took a cab up to the Metropolitan Museum and spent the morning wandering around and seeing what we felt like seeing. There's a marble statue in the slideshow called the "Hand of God" by Rodin. It's worth noticing. My new favorite. After lunch in the museum cafe, Amy and I headed around to the back of the building to watch for Uncle David. We managed to end up right across the course from Aunt Melissa. Once we yelled and screamed for Uncle David, we wandered to the road under the park and met up to wait for him with Auntie M. We never got to see him, because the exit chute took a while and we had a time limit on our day, so we gave up and headed downtown, to the corner of the park, for some shopping. We shopped our way down 5th Ave that afternoon, then wandered over to Times Square to take some pictures. Amy haggled with a rickshaw driver and managed to get us a ride back to the station with plenty of time to spare. Some pictures of this, then I'll talk about the rest of the semester...
The rest of the semester was fairly uneventful. We had Amy home for Thanksgiving, so I got the task of carving the Tofurkey (pictured in the slideshow). I came back to Clemson on Saturday for the Carolina game, which we actually won! Yay! Here are some Thanksgiving pictures...
We finished out the semester a week later. I have been home for the entire break. It was nice to be there for that long. I'm certainly ready for school again now. I've got another slideshow for you now...Christmas pictures...
That's all for now! I'm working away on plans for a conference I'm going to next weekend. I leave on Friday and I'll be gone until Wednesday. I'm sure I'll have some pictures from Florida when I get back. Until then...
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