Courtney’s Haven

Bed and Class

Today at 4 am, there was a huge storm, and guess what happened?

The power went off! I know. Good thing my first class was at 10 am. I woke up at 8:13 am on my own. If I didn’t go to bed so early (11:30 pm), I probably would’ve missed it.

My classes are going very well. Circuit Theory got cancelled for tomorrow and Friday. I know! Awesome. :)

My math class: I love the prof. It’s very well-structured. My first quiz is tomorrow, (but don’t worry, I’m ready for it).

I really do like taking summer school here. It’s so much more relaxed compared to the regular term.

Well, anyways, I got new bedding, and living in an apartment makes me SOOOOO incredibly happy. It probably has to do something with being able to remove myself psychologically from school. This exuberance is a great thing. :)

Without further ado,

Well, back to math hw.

Danskin Weekend

Sometimes I really get annoyed with never ending days, such as today from 4 on today, but some days are so wonderful that they make up for the other ones.

This weekend was wonderful!

I worked so hard during the week so that I could have an actual weekend. (I bet my roommate thinks that I don’t even sleep in my apartment. ). After my test on Friday, 10 minutes later I had a doctor’s appointment to test my new contacts out. It didn’t take too long, and I’m glad that I finally have my own contacts. I have another appointment next week after yet another math test. Every Friday for 4 weeks. Oh joy. Anyways, then I went to the grocery store really really quickly, with list in hand that I made in ELEN that same day. BLONDE MOMENT THOUGH. Like I said, I was trying to go as quickly as possible, and it turns out I left my keys on the outside of the door. Geez. I’m a moron sometimes. LOL. At least I’ve learned to accept that those things happen no matter how much I resist. Then, I unpacked my groceries, well more like stuffed everything in the refridgerator, of course organizing it well the first thing I got home. I packed my stuff for the weekend and the journey ahead of me. I left about 2.5 hours after my test got out. NOT TOO BAD. I headed to Katy despite telling my mom that I was “staying in College Station.” oops. (She didn’t want me to come to Katy because she was afraid that I would get in a wreck, and I apparently do what I deem fun/not stupid, so I decided to go to Katy. But I didn’t want to show up because then she would get mad that I was in Katy.) I didn’t even go home first. I went to Brandon’s house to visit Hannah and Rachel. I love those girls so much; they mean the world to me.

At Brandon’s house, it turns out that I had my second BLONDE MOMENT for the day. Well, you see. When I parked my car, it was adjacent to the water drainage on the side of the street. I had my purse on, but somehow my wallet decided to grow legs and jump into water hole. It was awesome. Like always though, the Smith’s helped out. I don’t know the actual name of it, but I like to call it “The Awesome Claw.” It saved my life.

After that, I went to Osama’s house. WEEEEE. Sure beats College Station in the summer. Osama, my fun friend. Clint was over there also, and they were playing water badminton when I arrived. Well, what I should really say is that they were trying to play. The racquets were poorly made, and as a result, the birdie would, more often than not, get stuck in the racquet. We didn’t swim much, for it was very chilly suprisingly. AND WE WERE HUNGRY. (I believe the latter to be the greater impetus.) So, we called some other people (jen, darren) to go eat at Pei Wei, a P.F.Chang’s affiliate. yum. I’m so glad Katy decided to market one of those. Their lettuce wraps and mongolian beef are simply the best. I ordered the teriyaki chicken rice bowl. This was generally out of my normal order, but I’m glad that I decided to try it. We ate, with plenty of fortune cookies of course, and then decided to watch a movie. We watched Eulogy (are movies underlined or quoted?). I actually watched part of it, and then I decided to just go to sleep there. That was the biggest mistake I made this weekend. After that, I got back to my house at around 2 am. I went to bed at 3 and set my alarm for 11:30 am. (I figured 8.5 hours of sleep would be good considering I averaged 4 hours a sleep for the previous week.) I feel asleep, but then I woke up. What time you ask? 7 freakin’ o clock in the morning. And I tried to get back to bed, but I just couldn’t. This was not a happy Courtney. So, I woke up and did some laundry, played some piano (Chopin’s Deux Nocturne, op. 62 to be exact), ate breakfast, and talked to mom and John. They left shortly after, so I decided to try to take a nap because I knew I would be driving a lot, and I didn’t feel like falling asleep and dying. I took an hour nap. It was good enough. Then, around 12, I went to the swim suit shop on Hwy 6 to get another work out swimming suit. (my other one had become practically see through from wear). Then, I headed straight to Austin, taking 290 only b/c it was closer. I got into Austin pretty quickly, and I didn’t even get caught by a cop for speeding. :) It wasn’t bad of a drive considering I was singing at the top of my lungs to wonderful classics like Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” and Frank Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight.” So then, I got to Elizabeth’s house and chilled there for a while. I played with Kaleigh for about 3 hours. It was so fun! Later in the evening (7pm) other members of the family (excluding my mother and John) came over for homemade spaghetti and after dinner drinks. Yummm. Both were wonderful. Then, they left at around 9:30 pm, and Elizabeth and I started to watch “City of Angels.” Even though I was very interested in the movie, I wasn’t that interested in watching a movie, so I decided to study some circuits, and I played on the computer. I went to bed at 1am even though I had to be up at 5am. I am stupid. I know this. I just wasn’t tired at the time, nor ready to go to bed.

Sunday I woke up a little late, but I got to Decker Ln. in time just as the first wave was about to go in. I took a picture with Meredith O’Riley who apparently was also a swim angel.

Meredith and Me

I know I look like a freakin’ moron in my cap, but hey! it’s swimming. People look at the body, not the face. (admit it…it’s true)

I was probably in the water for about 2.5 hours. It was so much fun. I met lots of people, and I personally swam next to 5 people and swam with them all the way to the finish. For my 2nd year, I just can’t wait to make a 3rd one. Oh, I also took a picture of the swim angels. What fun!

After I got done with the swim, I found my mom and the rest of the family. Below are some pictures:

Kaleigh, Me, and John

Me and Mom

The Whole Crew Minus Jenny (sorry Jenny)

Well, that’s it. I made this entry super awesome because I won’t be having time ANY TIME SOON. ELEN 214 is so ridiculous. 5 things a week due in there that usually takes 4-5 hours a piece. ahhhh. How are we supposed to learn the material if we’re doing work all the time for it?

But at least I’m getting my swim on everyday. It may be at 6 in the morning, but hey, I can sacrifice sleep for happiness. (swimming for exercise=happiness).

Weekend #3 of Summer School

This weekend was awesome. Except for the time when I was dreading going back to school and moping around the house because I knew how much work I had to do, it was wonderful.

Friday, I came into Katy at around 7pm. It was the same crew hanging out except one addition. It was me, Jeremy, Osama, Clint, Jen, Darren. Good fun that was. We went to a “club” near Richmond. Details are nonessential, but all I know is that I had a lot of fun. I believe I stayed up till 5 am. Ah, I love not sleeping.

But, what I love even more is actually sleep. I slept for 6 hours. :) That’s a lot for me, and it definitely felt wonderful. Nothing beats doing handstands on the wall and eating pizza with ranch at the wee hours of the night.

On Saturday, I drove back home and met my mom at the Verizon store to get a new phone. (It turns out that my phone accidently fell into a basin of water.) Luckily, I turned my phone on in the store, and it actually was working! I think what happened is that my water dried out of the battery. At least, I didn’t have to end up paying for a new phone. I went back to the house and relaxed for a while. That was awesome. Then, I went swimming for a while UNTIL it started thundering. GAH. The weird thing though is that it was perfectly clear outside, and no one heard it. I think that the lifeguards just wanted us to get out. So, that was rather disappointing. I took a shower, went to Osama’s house to watch the UT baseball game against Baylor. I left at midnight and BOY, was I tired.

On Sunday, I left around 11:30, stopped by the Smith’s house, and I stayed there for about an hour. I got into College Station at around 2. I started working on my lab report, and then I had to head to the E.R. to volunteer for 3 hours.

Volunteering in the E.R. was so awesome. As opposed to volunteering in the oncology or rehab. nursing units, I actually get patient contact. I definitely took about 14 ECGs. I helped some lady pee in a cup, well actually 2. Talked and tried to entertain a bunch of kids. It was an awesome experience. I even got complimented by the head nurse AND doctor of how well I did on my first time being there. So, I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure that’s great. But now, it’s so incredibly hard to make up my mind about what I want to do for the rest of my life. Should I pursue engineering? Should I pursue the M.D.? I need to decided by the fall. Choices choices choices. One which will be the hardest most life defining so far. I really hope I figure it out.

Well, seeing as it is a Monday, life is very busy.
I would have posted pictures (because I love them so much), but my USB connection is deciding to be retarded. Sorry about that.

Maybe, if I figure it out later.

Session I Almost Finished

It really makes me sad how much school dictates my life. There are so many things that I want to do (like breathe), but I can’t. With my luck, I’m going to die before I graduate, and all this work would be for nothing. Now that’s just depressing.

On the up side, session I is almost over. These 5 weeks have been utter hell. The next 5 will be even worse with the introduction of a 4.5 hour lab two times a week plus classes. Oh well. No sleeping, running, swimming, relaxing, breathing….just school.

The good thing though with session I end is that I get a couple days off. So, I am “free” (minus the classwork I will be doing for ELEN, my 10 week class). I get Saturday, Sunday, Monday (duh), AND Tuesday off. How exciting. :) I’m not sure what I’m doing yet, but I don’t even care, as long as it’s not looking at circuits and writing 11 page lab reports too much.

My spirits are high, but you can only stay dry so long under a rain cloud.

Engineer to Teacher?

I’m sorry, but I had to update. This news is too important!

So, I decided to change my chemistry class to a “international and diversity credit.” I figured that I shouldn’t put myself through more hell than I’m already in.

One class that satisifies this type of credit (and was open for the second summer session) happened to be INST 210, which is “Understanding Special Populations.” This may sound hard, but really all this class is is a “teacher class.” At Texas A&M, this great university, we have lots of education majors. Their assignments are to write lesson plans most of the time. I respect the field of teaching—-I really do, but as an engineer-in-training, I am certain that the course work that I do is much harder/painstaking/time consuming than theirs will ever be.

But, here’s the wonderful thing. Starting on Wednesday, for 5 weeks, I get to write lesson plans, interview a teacher, do 1 current event, and all the great course work that goes along with becoming a teacher. All of this will be for a grade!

This makes me happy. No more deriving stress in a thin walled vessel in a 3X3 system or laplace transforms for me. Well, until the fall.

So there you have it. I’m going to be a teacher.