I don't really have anything to say today. Kennda's home (yeh Kennda!) and the story about why she missed her flight on Sunday makes me laugh. On NPR this morning the poetry reading-guy with the annoying voice ("Writer's Almanac") read Berryman by W.S. Merwin. I found these lines interesting:



I had hardly begun to read

I asked how can you ever be sure

that what you write is really

any good at all and he said you can't



you can't you can never be sure

you die without knowing

whether anything you wrote was any good

if you have to be sure don't write



I wonder if its true. I'm not much of a writer, so, I'll probably never know.

Today the weather is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Warm sun, light breeze clear sky. The thought of summer is rapidly just becoming a faded unpleasant memory. If every day was like this, with occasionally a thunderstorm or small blizzard for variety, I would be happy.

I went to the Astros game on Saturday; did nothing all day Sunday (well, mowed the lawn, shampooed my bedroom carpet, and invested in one bark collar which appears to be working so I'll probably buy number two, and paid bills, and watched LOTS of t.v.). Nick cooked dinner (yeh for someone else cooking dinner for a rare change!) We waited for Kennda to get home, but she never did, I wonder what happened, I hope she's not stuck at an airport in Timbuctu or something.

Karen text messaged me this morning. From the Grand Canal. In Venice. Ah. Italy. I am SO jealous. 11 More Days until Greece.

This is for all you girls, about twenty-five.

All around the world,

This one's for the girls.

So, I admit, I have another country song that I'm willing to enjoy and sing along to. Embarrassing isn't it? I guess I'm letting Texas get under my skin (who would imagine I'd ever start liking tex-mex too!). At least this one isn't "Beer for my horses" and "Its 5 O'Clock Somewhere." And I no longer have to feel guilty about enjoying the Dixie Chicks, because they've decided to call themselves a rock band (even though, as Jay Leno pointed out a few nights ago, they are probably the only rock band that has a banjo and a fiddle).

The Rice crew team is doing this "rent-a-rower" thing for 4 hours of labor of my choice. I'm thinking maybe I'll recruit them to remove my posionous and/or ugly bushes. Its cheaper than some of the quotes I've gotten from the lawn services.

Sarah pointed out we're going to be leaving for Greece in two weeks. Yeah!! I am so excited. There are so many things I want to see there, I don't know how to squeeze it all in. (I had forgotten until I read a travelogue about Delphi and Meteora! And there's Athens. And Santorini. And quiet little islands with picturesque fishing villages.) Greece!!!

I tried a recipe in my new cookbook (thanks Grandmother Cutri!) and scalded myself with hot oil last night. But the food was yummy! I am probably going to try another recipe tonight.

My plan is to veg out again this weekend. Mow the lawn (which really really needs it and my new lawnmower has finally arrived at the store). And go to the Astros game with my branch. That's about it.

Was I made fun of?

So, I think I got made fun of last night. Or maybe not. It was a very weird experience. After work, I couldn't convince anyone to go to dinner with me, and I had to go to class (so I didn't have enough time to go home), so I went to Fudrucker's by myself. I was sitting on the patio, eating, and basically minding my own business (I was the only one outside, despite the weather being marvelous) and someone comes and taps on the shoulder. He looked really young, and said "Hi", I kind of shot him this confused I-don't-know-you look, but said "Hi" back (wondering to myself if he was a co-op or something that I should know, but he looked even younger than that, like high school age). And then he and his friend just walked away. They got into a beat-up TransAm, and as they drove by me, he yelled "I'll love you forever!" Very weird. It was kind of one of those things that leave you wondering "Did I just get made fun of? What just happened?"

So, I brushed it off, went to class, and got home a little before 9 p.m.

Yip yip, part deux

There was another annoying call from my anonymous neighbor who said "Hello, this is your neighbor. This is your last warning about barking dogs, I'm going to call animal control next time." Ok, I feel really bad about this, they shouldn't be disturbing the neighborhood. I just can't handle receiving rude anonymous messages. It makes me angry. I don't get zen like. Instead, I just want to get even (despite knowing that I'm in the wrong, they could've handled the whole thing a little better). I hope she gets laughed off the phone when she calls animal control, which has bigger problems to worry about than a couple of barking dogs.

Since her last call (September 16), this is only the second day I have left the dogs outside and the first time in months I've left them outside past 7:30 p.m. (so, they are averaging being outside ONE day a week). And before the September 16 call, they had also only been outside one day in the previous week (in the month of September, I could count the number of times they've been outside during the day on one hand). One day a week is not a continuous nuisance (and when I put them outside this morning, I played fetch with Apache for a few minutes and heard the barks of at least three other dogs, so I'm obviously not the only one in the neighborhood with loud dogs). I just can't leave them inside when I'm going to be gone from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., they'd go nuts, and they probably would have to go to the bathroom too. So, I really am going to buy bark collars this weekend. I might also look into hiring a neighborhood kid to stop by a couple days a week to bring the dogs inside halfway through the day (or conversely, take them outside for a quick walk if I've left them in). And, maybe, late Saturday night I'll toilet-paper the not-so-anonymous ladies house.

Stupid unneighborly neighbors.

Its my Dad's 50th birthday today. Happy Birthday Dad! I just talked to him on the phone, and he sounds good except for the small household crisis that Rob just got sent to the principal's office for hitting some kid on the playground. I solved the birthday gift dilemma by getting him nothing except a promise that I will buy a plane ticket to come visit Philadelphia in the next couple of months, which I wanted to do anyway, so I'll kill two birds with one stone :). I wonder if I can get away with that for my Mom's 50th birthday next year. I have such a difficult time coming up with thoughtful gifts.

My simulation runs stopped only 30 minutes after I left work last night. Bugger! Another 8 hours lost. Sigh.

I'm going to start another little pet project I've been meaning to do for a while (but hoping I wouldn't have to), because I really don't have anything of a more pressing nature to get done. Hopefully, things will pick up again soon. My dad just said to me "I read another article on the Investigation of you guys, and I hate to say it, but it seems like for the next 5-10 years NASA will be a dead end, you may have to get out of there.." (Of course, he still thinks I should go into the airplane salvage business). I try not to think those things, because for the time being, NASA is the only (American) organization seriously in the business of putting people into space. (ok, there's the Xprize, but the Xprize companies I'm interested in are not really hiring and their future is even more uncertain than NASA anyway). And, being involved with manned space exploration is all I really want to do with my career right now, so, here I am...

I'm having a good day today so far. I woke up rested. Class was amusing (today's antic: the professor noticed that a transparency was flittering from the fan of the overhead projector; he then spent 5 minutes trying to make it hover over the table using the lift from the fan). The weather is nice. I had a good lunch (leftovers from my dinner last night, yum!). The simulations that I set up last night actually finished this morning. And I'm almost done with my astrodynamics homework and I actually understand the next homework assignment for fluids (more to be seen on that one once I start it).

Whoever writes for cnn.com seems to be having a very entertaining time writing about Galileo's demise (Galileo the 14 year old robotic probe that just crashed into Jupiter, not Galileo the scientist). The headlines that tickled me most: "Robot ship to meet firey death by Jove" and "A smashing end for Jupiter explorer".

I guess I'm easily amused today, because Talk Like a Pirate Day is cracking me up. For more details, read this Dave Barry column. To help celebrate, I got a pirate name: Captain Bess Flint. Even though there's no legal rank on a pirate ship, everyone recognizes you're the one in charge. Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp. But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky. Arr!

I had an extremely relaxing weekend. I basically did nothing but veg out on Saturday. Saturday night, Sarah, Jen and I planned a girls' night. Which didn't actually turn into a girls' night unless you count that we watched this very weird chick flick ("Only You").

Sunday I dragged myself out of bed to run a 5K (3.1 miles). I was pretty convinced I wouldn't make the whole run because even when I did run regularly, I had hard time making that whole distance. Stupidly, I ran the whole distance anyway (ok, I paused for about 15 seconds to drink water at the two mile mark). Now my legs feel like jelly.

But I was rewarded, because after the 5K, we went to P.F.Chang's for lunch and the Cheesecake Factory for desert, thus offsetting any actualy physical gains from the run. Yum!

That's the excitement. I have a massive amount of homework to do before Wendesday. And Exceed shut down sometime around 2 a.m. on Saturday morning effectively ending my SORT sims. So, now I'm off to kick them off again.

Its nice to know I only have to work an 8 hour day for a change today (for the last couple of weeks, my days have ranged in length from 6:30 - 10 hours, but never settled on 8).

Nick moved in last night (Nick Saadah, NOT my brother Nick, he's still in Vermont, sorry about that confusion worried friends and family). Its nice to know there'll be some activity in the house for a while. It sounds like he's planning on staying until the beginning of December. Now, I just need to find a roommate for winter semester because both Nick and Kennda will be gone - talk about an empty house!

Once again, I have no plans for the weekend. The weather looks like its going to be spectacular, so I'm thinking of taking the dogs down to the beach. Or doing something else suitabley outdoorsy. And finishing my Scotland scrap book. And doing my homework (that is if I can make out the words on my rapidly blurring monitor at home). And if I'm lucky (lucky?), my lawn mower will come in and I can beat back the rapidly growing grass.

Carter quoted a James Taylor song in his journal, making me want to spend all day listening to James Taylor. Its one of those random things that makes me nostalgic about my job in Switzerland (which I didn't actually like that much... actually, thinking about how much I didn't like it is making me feel much less disgruntled about my job here and downright happy about what I do). David's two James Taylor CD's were pretty much the only thing everyone in the office (of about 8 of us) all enjoyed, and thus, was the only thing that we ever played on the office speakers instead of our headphone (leading to weird looks from the full-time, conservative, GERMAN, engineers). Sometimes things degenerated into sing-a-longs. Ah. Good times. :)

I should become a meteorologist. Last week we all made little predictions on where Hurricane Isabelle would make landfall (to go along with our office's universal prediction that all hurricans are heading strait for Rich's house). Anyway, I picked the south end of the Outer Banks (which was farther north than most people's thoughts of Florida and Georgia). This just helps support my theory that the Outer Banks has some weird physical phenomenon that makes it a hurricane magnet - when in doubt about where the hurricane is going to go, pick North Carolina, especially if others are predicting it to go to Florida.

My new roommate, Nick, is moving in tonight. I think. My old roommate, Cari called yesterday to chat from the Chicago airport (she is temporarily back in the U.S.ofA. for a wedding). I was a bit distracted by trying to run SORT and do homework at the same time, so I don't remember much of the conversation (mostly because SORT kept crashing, and I couldn't remember how to do derivatives of the types of functions I was working with on my homework). She seems happy though.

In a related topic, I don't know how Sarah has spent the last 6 months continuously running SORT (that's a simulation we use here at work). I haven't had to use it too often recently, and I'm back to it, and it just makes me angry and moody. Some computer work I don't mind - like writing my own code to automate a process, or performing completely new calculations, or making cool maps, anything that absorbs my attention. But SORT just feels like this big monstrosity with all these tenticals going off in every directions and I can't get my arms around anything that deviates from the way I usually do it. So I went home in a bad mood last night. Maybe I'll be in a better mood if I find my problem. I've already found half a dozen other problems while searching for the source of this one, so maybe that's a good thing.

We had double-header in volleyball last night, and we performed miserably. Six of us got beaten three times by a time of only three people. And then we got killed three more times by another team. When we first started out, I wasn't really frustrated by our (and my) poor performance because of the learning curve and lack of practice and it is supposed to be fun, after all. But 6 months (and 100 games) into it, I feel like we should be doing better. I still reach for the ball and end up missing it by a few feet, or I'm not agressive enough to go after balls that should be mine. Or I end up accidently hitting the ball into my teammate's face instead of over the net and then I am an insenstive clod about it and can't stop laughing when I know I should be concerned rather than amused (even if it was a funny sight). So, I spend the whole game kicking myself over lost opportunities. Its very frustrating.

We don't have class tonight. I am going to take a break this evening after work. When I go home, I am going to do nothing but make myself something good and wholesome for dinner (I don't know what quite yet, I'll have to give it more thought) and watch t.v.

This got forwarded to me yesterday:

The phaomnneil pweor of the hmuan mnid.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

asboutely amzanig

Weird dreams

Sarah talked about weird dreams last night. Well, I woke up this morning in the middle of a doozy. I dreamt that NASA called our whole group into work to examine a pressure/space suit that was found in the ocean. They couldn't identify it as American or Russian, and they were supposing it was possibly Chinese. They wanted us to figure out if it was in a footprint of a potential Chinese space launch failure. My job was to figure out all the trajectory details of the Chinese launch, and figure out the ballistic coefficient of the space suit (which was now permanently stored in a museum-like display on my desk). Then a secret government agency came to us and implied the space suit might not be Chinese, but instead alien in origin. Weird.

More professor quirks

I have another random tidbit from my Finite Elements professor today. But this one is a joke about ordinary differential equations in a PhD qualifying exam that, if I'm lucky, two of you may find funny. So I'll keep it to myself.

Dang computer!

My monitor on my computer at home is doing something funky. I can't decide if I have a driver problem or if its a settings thing or if its my monitor frying. I hate for it to be my monitor, cause I like it, its clear, big, and the screen is fairly flat.

Yip yip yip yip yip...

And when I came home last night at 7:30 p.m., I usually bring my dogs in no later than 7 because I don't want them to disturb the "quiet" of my neighborhood and I've had a complaint before, there was a lovely (sarcasm here) message on my answering machine (with my comments in brackets):


Hello, this is your neighbor (yes, she still refuses to identify herself) I don't know what your problem is (I'm not the one leaving anonymous messages on my neighbor's phones, so I am obviously not the one with the problem) but your dogs have been barking non-stop since 7:30 a.m. (Ok, possible, I admit, I suck, though unlikely that they've been going non-stop, because I asked my neighbor across the street about it once and he said that they usually bark right after I've left for work, when the kids walk by on their way home from school, and right before I come home in the evening) and they have been doing this every day for the last week. (Not possible, the dogs were inside every day but Wednesday of the last week) Again, we've talked to you about this before (I wouldn't know, because all you do is leave anonymous answering machine messages) and you need to start leaving them inside again every day because they are dangerous and a nuscense(She has obviously never been near my dogs if she thinks they are "dangerous".Now she is going too far, this is not going to happen, though I will invest in bark collars this weekend)

And that was that. When Robert Frost said "Fences make good neighbors" he was completely wrong, because I have the freakin' highest fences ever and the worst most unfriendly neighbors sometimes. Of course, I don't remember if in that poem you weren't supposed to be taking the good fences=good neighbors seriously or if he was trying to imply the opposite through some form of satire. hm.

I am pretty convinced its not just my dogs she's hearing, though. Either that, or she's prone to extreme exaggeration. One of the neighbors behind me has a yippy dog that they put out all day a few days a week, and sometimes he goes out early enough in the morning that his yipping wakes me up! So, maybe its the combination of both that she's blaming on me. Or she's leaving anonymous messages on the yippy-dog owner's answering machine too.

Anyway, its taking everything in me to admit I am in the wrong on the whole dog barking thing, because all I want to do is call the lonely housewife that is leaving the anonymous messages and telling her to get a job! That way she won't have to sit in the house all day with my dog's barking interupting her soap opera watching.

Ok, that was my mean side coming out. Its just a thought. This is a journal, I'm allowed to hypothesize "what if" scenarios.

The weekend was just how I expected it: lazy. Once Upon a Time in Mexico was awful. I ran errands on Saturday, which included purchasing the Sound Of Music on DVD. I don't know why I picked that out of all the movies on sale at Target. But I did. I remember we used to have that movie on VHS, carefully recorded, with the commercials for the most part cut out (someone hitting the pause button every commercial break). I used to watch it almost every time I stayed home from school sick. So, I watched it while working on my scrapbook (until I ran out of pages). Then I watched Payback and ate a tv dinner. I slept until noon on Sunday. I ran a few more errands, did the dishes, did my laundry, paid bills, blah blah blah. Now, another week.

I think aliens have been kidnapping me out of my bed at night and performing weird experiments. Every night this week, I have gone to bed at a normal hour, but still woken up incredibly groggy and unrested. I've also had some very weird early morning dreams. Matt, our resident UFO expert, says that unless my dreams are nightmares about someone being in my room with me at night, hovering over me or something, its probably not alien abduction. I guess I need another theory.

People who don't understand how web pages work frustrate me sometimes.

This weekend, the plans are the usual. Plus hopefully a pedicure, a movie (Once Upon a Time in Mexico), and finishing my Scotland scrapbook so I don't feel guilty taking a trip without finishing the scrap book for my last one.

Today the professor was showing us some little tricks in using the finite difference method. He said sternly, "This is probably one of the most important lessons you will ever learn in your life." He paused, and stared at the checkered floor introspectively, "I take that back. But this is good for fluids."

Sarah reminded me that last year on September 11th we we onboard a boat, watching the sun rise, as we approached the Orkney Isles. That was a beautiful day (despite the bike ride from hell). I don't think it could've been any more perfect. Its nice to have that memory of this date in history instead of just a memory of tragedy. I also agree with Sarah, I feel detached from the WTC attacks. I was in what I called my "Swiss bubble" day, recovering with a bout of drinking with the Brits, taking a MENSA test, and planning a vacation to Morocco.

Like Sarah, the most monumetal world event for me has been Columbia. Today, when I was driving to class and I saw all the flags at half-staff, it immediately brought back that horribly sinking feeling that consumed me right after Columbia, combined with the sense of urgency I suddenly had to my work. I also remember how good it felt over a month later when our flags were raised to full-mast. I think from now on, a flag at half staff will always affect me in a way it never had before.

My excitement for yesterday was buying a ticket to Greece! Whoo hoo! October 10-19 to the last major European destination I absolutely want to see (I mean, there are other places I'd like to go: Turkey, Scandanavia, Budapest, Moscow, to name a few). The unfortunate part was the ticket turned out to be really expensive (though I got a cheaper fare that I think wouldn't otherwise be available through a glitch in the airline's web page). So, once again, I'm going to be reduced to traveling like an ultra-poor student (which is about $20 per day cheaper than traveling like the poor 20-something I am). Things only look up because we got our "Christmas" bonuses yesterday, which is a nice little windfall.

I woke up this morning and my feet were sound asleep. My dog is a psycho. Usually Apache sleeps all night on my bathroom floor (on the tile). But she must have been cold or lonely or something. I think she spent all night sleeping on my bed (where she's not allowed without an "come on up") and on my feet. It was weird. It was cute. Just to have that experience in the surreal dreamlike state I'm usually in when I wake up.

There was an epidemic of bad driving today. First of all, people were driving exceptionally slow. They'd be in the middle lanes, trucking along at 50 mph, with nothing but open road ahead of them. And no way to pass them (because there were exits on the lanes on either side of them). Then, at one of the normally trafficky spots, the car in front of me rear-ended the car in front of her. Now, instead of being sane people involved in a fender bender on the fourth lane of a five lane highway and pulling over to a shoulder, they just stopped. And stopped me. And the many cars behind me. And we sat there, waiting to see what they'd do. Finally, the woman gets out of her car! In the middle of the highway! And then proceeds to have a chat on her cell phone in the fifth lane (I don't know if she wanted to be road kill or what!). Now, traffic is moving at a pretty speedy clip in all the lanes but mine, where I am completely stopped by this accident. The amount of traffic effectively prevented me from accelerating in such a short distance from a dead stop to a cruising speed with enough time to prevent me from getting rear ended. So I sat, and waited, until a kind soul let me in.

Then class. Which was a very inspiring lecture about why this class is important, in which he showed pretty pictures of results from really fast computers doing computational fluid dynamics.

Then, when I came back, I'm driving along at 20 mph through the pedestrian zone on site (there are cross walks every 15 feet or so). I am very diligant about stopping to let walkers cross. As I came to one crosswalk, there were two walkers just coming out of a building, a good 20 feet away from the road, so I decided to pull through the cross walk. One of the walkers decided just then to go from the casual stroll she left the building at, to a mad sprint right in front of my car. I had to turn to miss her! Another safety statistic waiting to happen!

Maybe its because currently the ozone levels in Houston are "red" making the great outdoors hazardous to all people (usually Houston is only hazardous to the elderly, weak, infirm and people with asthma, ah, what a city!)

I had a very uneventful weekend. I cleaned. (Everything, including the cupboards and refridgerator, they were just yucky!). I tried to get my lawnmower fixed, which involved traveling about 100 miles, going to Sears 4 times, at 3 different locations. I went to the Cheesecake Factory. I went to an artsy theatre in a posh part of town to see a documentary on surfing (which was good, despite the couple behind me who managed to talk the entire movie). Yesterday I vegged. And I had an allergy attack, so I slept. I slept so long I messed up bidding on the perfect dress for Aunt Diane on Ebay. So my mom woke me up this morning, and when I informed her of this news she was scarily critical and then hung up on me. Thus starts my day.

Now, I also didn't get a chance to do laundry this weekend, mostly out of my laziness and the massive amounts Kennda is doing in preparation for her trip to Spain. So I threw a load in last night with pretty much every single work shirt I have. Then I went to sleep and forgot about it. Now, I put a single shirt in the dryer this morning, right after 7:30. Its now 8:30, and the shirt is still soaked and I'm not going to get to work forever, turning today into what will probably be an extremely long day. Stupid shirt.

I had a very uneventful weekend. I cleaned. (Everything, including the cupboards and refridgerator, they were just yucky!). I tried to get my lawnmower fixed, which involved traveling about 100 miles, going to Sears 4 times, at 3 different locations. I went to the Cheesecake Factory. I went to an artsy theatre in a posh part of town to see a documentary on surfing (which was good, despite the couple behind me who managed to talk the entire movie). Yesterday I vegged. And I had an allergy attack, so I slept. I slept so long I messed up bidding on the perfect dress for Aunt Diane on Ebay. So my mom woke me up this morning, and when I informed her of this news she was scarily critical and then hung up on me. Thus starts my day.

Now, I also didn't get a chance to do laundry this weekend, mostly out of my laziness and the massive amounts Kennda is doing in preparation for her trip to Spain. So I threw a load in last night with pretty much every single work shirt I have. Then I went to sleep and forgot about it. Now, I put a single shirt in the dryer this morning, right after 7:30. Its now 8:30, and the shirt is still soaked and I'm not going to get to work forever, turning today into what will probably be an extremely long day. Stupid shirt.

I think that even if finite element theory isn't the subject for me, I'm going to enjoy the class just because the professor makes me laugh. Yesterday, he randomly stopped the lecture, and for no particularly reason, said, Have you ever heard the story of the fox? Hm. I guess you haven't. Well, we all know that the only thing beautiful about a fox is its tail. One fox lost his tail in an accident. He went and tried to convince all the other foxes that they should cut their's off too, because it was the fashion. They just laughed at him and, of course, didn't cut off their long beautiful tails. And then he returned to talking about boundary layers. Very random.

After work, the guys are having one of their twice a year (Christmas and Christmas-in-the-Summer) happy hours at Hooter's. They always invite the analyst women so we don't feel left out. I actually went to last year's Christmas at Hooters, because, let's face it, I was one of the only people still left in town at the time, and I was bored. But I think this time I'm going to go home and mow the lawn. Though, there are enough women around now that we could have an alternate sissy-girly-frozen-pink-drink happy hour while the guys go to Hooters. Maybe the next time it rolls around, that's what we'll do..

Last night, we had a Space Week meeting that lasted FOREVER. The good news is, we're getting some great press coverage. Look here and here and here (Make sure you scroll down on some of the articles, 'cause the WSW stuff isn't exactly in the headlines).

Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone...

Hm. This turned out to be a serious entry. Rare. But true.

I am having a wish-I-was-flying week. I've missed flying since I stopped (over two years ago now!). But this week has been worse. Not only am I missing flying, but I am having the fleeting thoughts about dropping it all and trying my hand at professionaly piloting. I usually only had those feelings when school was really bad, and flying was really fun. I have to remind myself of all the reasons I wouldn't enjoy flying as a career. My favorite thing about flying is the singular concentration, the world for me is just me and the airplane and those things which will affect my flight. Nothing else enters that realm. Its nice. Maybe escapist. I prefer to think its like exercise for my mind. The difference between my regular level of concentration and how I am when I'm flying is the difference between meandering aimlessly through the woods and a 5K; and when I'm learning a new skill, its the difference between the 5K and a marathon. Too bad I don't have the time or the money to take it up again. Maybe next year.

Many people, both at work and at home, have been questioning why I'm killing myself over classes. They question why I even feel I need the degree and why I don't cut my schedule to one class a semester.

For the first question - I don't know how to explain why I feel I want a Master's degree. I know it wasn't until my senior year of college that I even considered not immediately heading on to do graduate work. Even as a kid, it was always: high school, college, graduate school, all in one breath about my future. When I decided to take a job, one of the most important things to me was the opportunity to go back to grad school while working. So, I've always had the mental momentum to get my master's degree. I consider it even more important now that I've pretty much decided I don't want to get my PhD (unless, of course, its honorary!). Not to mention, I doubt my job in this particular group is where I am going to spend my entire career. That said, many of my peers either have their master's or are pursuing one part time; I don't want to find myself underqualified or uncompetitive for a particularly interesting job or opportunity.

As for the second question, that's harder to answer. The Rice commute is a long one. And yes, I could be doing my master's (not in engineering, but in something space-related) at Univ. of Houston-Clear Lake or through distance learning. But I learn better with an actual professor. And I wanted to take a traditional engineering curriculum. Now, with the commute putting a damper on my schedule during the school year, regardless if I take one class or two, the sooner its over with the better. This way I should be done in 2005, vs. 2006. Each extra class I take means one full semester less I'll have to inconvenience myself like this. So, the stress now is worth it. I think.

A cold front is enroute to Texas. Or in Jen's words, a "not so warm" front. This is good, because the yard needs lots of work. I have grand plans for housework this weekend. I am finally going to get my mower repaired (I figure Katie & Fred are probably getting frustrated at mileage I'm putting on their's). I am going to finish the molding on my spiffy new floor. All of this is not much of a subsitute for going to Seattle if you ask me, but, what can I do?

Matlab is currently counting from 1 to 83,000 for me. Its taking an extrodinarily long time for such a simple process. Woe is me and my slow computer.

Tonight I have class from 7-10 p.m. In case your wondering about my new crazy fall semester schedule it is as follows: Monday, work 9 hours (I'm shooting for 8-5:30) & ?go rock climbing?; Tuesday, class from 9:30-10:30, work from 11:45-6:45 & volleyball; Wednesday, work 9+ hours (8:30-6:30ish), class from 7 pm-10 pm; Thursday, same as Tuesday & an evening World Space Week meeting; Friday normal 8 hour day. Saturday/Sunday, frantically mow grass, weed, clean, catch up on rest, do homework, do laundry, play with lonely dogs. Rinse, repeat.

And reason number 1,632 why I will probably never become an astronaut: Its impossible for me to think that being an astronaut is "just a job."

I returned safe and sound from scaling a pink granite rock, hiking, lazing around in the sun and rain, and generally enjoying being away from the television, computer, phone, etc. For more details beyond that, Sarah gave a pretty throrough chronology of the trip. I am shamelessly benefiting by her prompt update. And as it turns out, we escaped a tropical storm by going on this trip too. What timing!

In class news, I am really enjoying my finite element methods class. Its making me remember all the good stuff about fluids (I was starting to feel a little disinterested in the subject after 6 months of calculating transfer functions in Switzerland). Maybe that's because right now we're only reviewing the derivations of equations I already know. And I'm also enjoying the class because we haven't gotten any homework yet.

I'm still disappointed I'm not going to Seattle this weekend. The other guy that is getting to go stopped me in the hallway today to tell me I was getting a "bum rap". Oh well, c'est la vie. I decided not to go to Boise, though. I thought about it a lot, but decided I couldn't miss my once-a-week Wednesday class another time on top of last week and the week I'll be in Greece (that class meets way fewer times and has a shorter semester than my Tuesday/Thursday class, so missing it is a bigger deal - and, the week we're in Greece is the Fall Break for Rice, so I'll hardly miss anything there). Ah, what I do for a few extra letters to add to my qualifications.

I thought Kennda was going to be home from her latest journey this weekend. But she's not. Oh well. Its difficult to keep track.