Amazing Break

Although I have found out I don't really have many friends at home anymore, this break, I realized how much my family and Mike's family mean to me. When I got home on Tuesday afternoon, my mom took Mike and I out for pizza. She always loves spending time with us and my brother. After going out for pizza, she and I went shopping for some Christmas presents. Whenever we go shopping together, we have so much fun and always break out into laughing fits over nothing. Wednesday, Mike and I went shopping, and he somehow got dragged into working with me at Aero on black Friday. We worked for 10 hours...it was a long day! We went back to his house to have Thanksgiving leftovers with his parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin. We pulled up in his driveway right behind his aunt, uncle, and cousin. As soon as we got out of the car, they came up and each gave me a big hug. Mike's family has always been so accepting and hospitable to me. Saturday, Mike and I went to Chicago with his little sister and one of her guy friends. He was incrediby like Mike which made the day tons of fun. We have this program at our school called Natural Helpers. Lisa went at the beginning of November. During it, you write a letter to someone who has helped you or you look up to. She wrote me a letter, mostly because she and Mike aren't really affectionate. It was great hearing how she thinks I have helped both her and Mike. This morning, Mike's mom even made me go along to look at the houses they are thinking about buying. Of course, throughout this entire break, I spent lots of time with my family, and they are always completely supportive of me. It was great spending time with both my family and Mike's family over break.

Chinese or a Happy Meal

When I was between the ages of about 6 and 12, every once in a while, my mom, brother, and I would meet Bonnie Coulter and her daughter, Megan, at this cute little Chinese restaurant. Before each meeting, we would stop at the McDonalds across the street to get a Happy Meal for me. I had never tried Chinese food and didn't want to, but I did want to be grown up. It was always weird having to bring McDonalds into the little restaurant for me. I would complain and throw a fit if they tried to make me eat Chinese food. I wouldn't even drink the tea they served. I would get so upset when they were all enjoying their food while I was eating greasy fries. Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking...blech! They were all so much older and sophisticated (at least, that's what I thought at the time). Finally, I got tired of being the immature little kid. I was going to be brave. I decided to try the Chinese food. Keep in mind that my daring behavior went only so far as to try sweet and sour chicken. Pathetic, I know, but it was a big step back then. After that fateful transition period, I started to eat more varieties of Chinese food and more varieties of food in general. Seeing the older, more sophisticated people eating things other than American food helped me see that different things are ok too. Now, Chinese and Asian foods are among my favorites.

This is a picture of Star of Siam in Chicago. It is my favorite Thai restaurant as of right now!

Spring Break Plans!!!

Ever since the middle of the summer, Mike and I have been talking about going to Tennessee for spring break. Neither of us want to go down to Florida for the whole party scene since there is enough of it here. We decided that we wanted to rent a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. We both love the outdoors, and it is beautiful down there! We figured out that for 4 couples in a 3 bedroom cabin, it would only be around $190 a person for the entire week. That's a good deal if you ask me. Everyone that is going happens to be more Mike's friend, but that's ok because I have known most of them since my freshman year in high school. The cabin is in the mountains and has a great view. There are games and everything. I am really just glad to get away from the party scene of the warm places. As much as I love laying on the beach, I love being cold in the outdoors! Squirreled Away is a cozy little cabin that offers things such as 6 decks, a pool table, a jukebox, air hockey, and a hot tub. So I think that $190 a night is a perfectly acceptable price to pay for a cute little cabin in the mountains!

Born Into Brothels

In the movie, Born Into Brothels, the children were revealed to anyone watching the movie. This includes anyone across the world with a tv and an interest to watch this movie. If you think about the movie in the way that the children's lives were "on display," then hopefully you'd say it wasn't fair. Personally, I don't think that I would want my childhood on display, especially if it was like these children's. If you don't think about their lives being "on display," then you see children who are open to help. The documentary may deceive you by making you think they love every part of being taped. We will never know for sure. Parts have been left out of the movie. As for parts being left out of the movie, I would hope that the children could ask Briski to leave a certain part out if they were really uncomfortable with it being seen. I think that she chose this brothel and this group of children for a reason. They trusted her and were eager to learn. In the end, I believe that the children were appropriately portrayed and ok being in the documentary because it ultimately helped them. I would deem this documentary successful in the sense that it made Briski look like a Good Samaritan and put the problems of the children out into the public in hopes to get support for her organization. The end left you with a good thought to donate to Kids with Cameras.

Wonderful World of Engineering

So, being almost done with first semester, I started thinking about how my classes were going. Oddly enough, I am happy with all of them except for Chemistry. I don't want to talk about that though. Engineering has turned into a class that I am very glad I decided to take. I have learned a lot, and even though I get frustrated a lot, I realize that it will be worth it in the end. My mom and I were talking this weekend about what I will be doing this summer. After talking with her, I am pretty sure I want to try to get a Co-Op position. It is a great program and maybe a good way to find a job for after college. We even went out and got a suit so I would have one for interviews. It's crazy to think that we will be out in the real world soon. Mike is a junior, and I always make fun of him for being old. he is finally starting to think about the fact that he will be on his own in about a year and a half. There are a lot of people his age getting engaged and married soon, which is even weirder. I definitely don't want to get married until I have a steady job and can support myself. Glad he knows that... Maybe that's just me trying to be independent though, I don't want to have to rely on anyone. Oh well, I guess college is a great time to find independence!

Health

Although we have been discussing the origins of our food lately, I have noticed that nothing about my eating habits has changed. I would love to eat healthy, organic foods. I'm sure it would make me feel better about what I was eating. Right now, I don't even have time to worry about drinking enough liquids! With life being so chaotic down here at school, food is the last thing on my mind. It is quite honestly the last thing I worry about when going about my day. Sleep and homework rank much higher! If I were at home, I would be eating much better than I do now. I would eat regular meals instead of at random times throughout the day. I'm sure some of the food would have been genetically modified, but at least it would be a home cooked meal. As for my relationship with food...I've always been picky, and now, I will probably think about what I am putting into my mouth before I do. Even if I think about it, I will most likely eat it anyways just because that's what I'm being fed in the dining court.

Home gets harder to leave

This weekend, I spent some time at home. Each time I get to go back, I become more and more reluctant to leave. It's relaxing to be able to have conversations with my family and not have to get off the phone due to an assignment or group meeting. I love sleeping in my own bed because I feel like that's where I should be sleeping. I love going home and hanging out with my mom. When I'm at home, I'm not stressed or worried. My problems are left here at school, and I always have a great time. There is no drama there that I have to worry about, and I just get to hear stories about other people's problems. I am already looking forward to this weekend because Mike and I are both going home even though we are leaving Purdue again on Tuesday. I can't wait until Thanksgiving. There is a good chance it is my favorite holiday although Christmas is a close second. The thing I am most excited about is having time off from school for more than two days! Oh, and of course, not having engineering is a plus!!!

Food log for two weeks ago... :)

Breakfast:
-Oatmeal
-Hi-C Strawberry Juice box

Lunch:
-Croissant with turkey, mozzarella cheese, lettuce, and tomato
-Rice and stir-fried vegetables
-Glass of water

Dinner:
-Container of Minestrone soup
-Cinnamon apple sauce
-Gatorade

Snack:
-so far just water...
-probably something later

Today, I didn't really eat anything home cooked. I guess you could consider the dining hall stuff that I ate for lunch home cooked, but in my opinion, it's not the same. I'm pretty sure that the vegetables in my soup were probably genetically modified. They would be taken from somewhere with the ability to grow mass quantities. There were red beans, chickpeas, celery, potatoes, and carrots in my soup. I'm sure something out of that list has been modified. I doubt that the broccoli and mushrooms I ate for lunch were organic because they also have to be bought in bulk. Food didn't really have to travel far for me today. Everything I ate was probably from the Midwest...maybe not. I ate fast food the entire day. Nothing took time to prepare, and I didn't get the pleasure of cooking the food myself.

Stubbornness can lead to a career?

The last blog of the week is always the hardest to write. It seems like there is nothing left to talk about, so you just ramble on about nothing and hope to make it to 200 words. It always seems like it is on my last blog that I randomly talk about all of my problems and what's going wrong in my life! I'm usually the type of person that keeps to themselves and doesn't like to let anyone in. That's pretty much me in a nutshell. I consider myself very outgoing but don't trust easily. I also am usually super quiet...I guess that's changed since I've been at school. I know that over these past almost 3 months, I have changed. I feel like I can take more on now and am much more stubborn than I was when I came down in August. Trust me, that was hard to beat. There is no way that I can change my major now. I refuse. I came in for engineering, and I vow to leave with a degree in some sort of engineering. I think all of the engineers received Co-Op postcards in the mail on Saturday. It finally helped me realize that I need to start working on getting an internship. I know there is almost no use in trying for a Co-Op because I don't want to do engineering. I want to work in a patent office. I decided that I would talk to Jim, my academic advisor, about trying for an internship at the U.S. Patent Office. I highly doubt they would want someone without any experience in law, but hey, maybe they will give me a chance!

Spoof Ad to Mortify...

In the foreground, you see a heart monitoring machine. It has two normal heart beats, then you see the "Golden Arches" before it flatlines. On the bottom of the machine, you see the words "Big Mac Attack!" In the background of the picture, you see three doctors working on the patient hooked up to the machine. They are trying to get his heart beating again. The ad is referencing Big Mac commercials and ads in which Big Macs are made to look appealing and appetizing. This spoof has on objective of showing you what can really come out of Big Macs, death. In my opinion, this spoof does a great job of showing truth. Part of our nation's obesity problem comes from eating foods like Big Macs. Seeing this ad would definitely make me think twice about putting that nasty thing into my digestive tract. Would you really want to be eating a Big Mac while looking at this ad. You would have to be thinking about how you could feel the cholesterol in your arteries slowly moving to your heart and stopping it. These foods are so unhealthy! Maybe I was already biased, and that was why I chose to talk about this ad. I haven't had a McDonalds burger in probably over 2 years. They are about the least appealing item to me.

Weekend

Went out Friday night.
Sleeping by 1 a.m.
Woke up at 10:30 a.m.
Messed around on the internet until the Purdue game started.
Quit watching at half.
Put in Meet the Robinsons.
Watched about 20 minutes then slept through the rest of the movie and the second time it played.
Woke up to credits.
Put in License to Wed.
Watched the entire thing and loved it.
Turned to Lifetime.
Watched a movie about a missing kid who was still alive 7 days later.
During all the times I was awake, I was working on math for the week.
Mike came over at 9:30 p.m.
We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Fell asleep by 12 a.m.
Woke up at 8 a.m. even though I thought it was 9 a.m.
Went to the mall with Mike for a couple of hours.
Came back and continued to do math homework.
Finished all math by 4 p.m.
Watched the Colts game with Billy, Torsten, and Carter.
Went over to Earhart to do Chem Lab write-up.
Came back to Owen did chem homework.
The rest of my week is dedicated to the research paper and studying for my engineering test on Wednesday and Thursday...Wish me luck and sorry if you actually read this whole thing!

Nervousness and Stress

As I was sitting in Engineering lecture today, I ran my hands through my hair, and like 5 strands fell out!!! It's so upsetting. I turned to the other girl on my team and just had this shocked look on my face as I was still holding the hair in my hand. I am so stressed that my hair is falling out. I mean, I always shed. It's normal, but never have I shed this much! I can't believe that I am already in my second round of tests. I had my second math test 2 weeks ago, but tonight I have my chemistry test. I'm really nervous about it. I feel the need to do well in that class because it is all stuff that I learned last year. The way my teacher gives us the information is not in the slightest bit interesting and completely confusing my thoughts from last year. So, to say the least, I'm pretty scared about this test tonight! Along with the test, I have to start on this wonderful research paper. I've never written a 10 page paper before. The longest has been 5 pages. College is something completely new to me. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it, and sometimes it's just crazy!

Continued Life

So my roommate and I are being civil. I think it's only because we both found other people to live with next semester! I went down to the lobby to get the forms to change roommates. The girl working the front desk told me that I was going to live on her floor. I probably gave her a really weird look, and she went on to say that one of the girls was graduating in December. This meant that her roommate needed someone. Annie and Lauren, RAs, told me to go introduce myself to the girl. She wasn't in her room so I just went to my room to work on homework. Like 20 minutes later, the girl comes up to my room and introduces herself. I told her what happened with my roommate, and she was disgusted, just like I had been. Her name is Laura, and she is an alumni of the same leadership conference as me. We are really excited, which is actually more than I can say for myself at the beginning of the year for the roommate I have now! Kind of odd, I'm more excited to live with someone I don't really know than someone I do. I guess experiences can change your mind some...

Life

Sometimes, you wish your friends would take sides until they choose the wrong one... I can't wait until next semester. There is so much drama in my life right now due to my roommate. I would rather dislike someone I didn't know before living with them than argue with and dislike someone that I've known for the last 15 years. I desperately wish that I could get a single room. With my classes right now, I don't need the stress of other people bringing drama. This weekend was so much fun. My roommate left for the weekend...and took the tv remote with her. Can we say immature? Friday night, I went out to dinner with a big group of people from my leadership conference. We are planning an event for this Saturday and needed to discuss it. I had a great time and was able to forget my problems. On Saturday, I went to the game with Torsten and Billy. Once again, loads of fun. After that, we went back to the dorms, watched tv for a little while and worked on our Postlab. Then, we went and tailgated with Mike's family. There was amazing food. It made me happy after thinking about dining hall food again. Last night, a big group of us went over to Farmhouse and watched a movie and tv for a little while. So overall, my almost stressless weekend was fabulous!

World Takeover

HERE ARE YOUR FOOTPRINT RESULTS:

CATEGORY GLOBAL ACRES
FOOD 4.2
MOBILITY 0.5
SHELTER 5.2
GOODS/SERVICES 4
TOTAL FOOTPRINT 14


IN COMPARISON, THE AVERAGE ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT IN YOUR COUNTRY IS 24 GLOBAL ACRES PER PERSON.

WORLDWIDE, THERE EXISTS 4.5 BIOLOGICALLY PRODUCTIVE GLOBAL ACRES PER PERSON.

IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.1 PLANETS.

Before taking this quiz, I honestly thought that I wasn't very wasteful of selfish. After seeing these results, I am kind of upset with myself. I understand that it means if everyone in the world lived like me then we'd need 3.1 planets, but what about the people who live like Donald Trump or celebrities? How many planets would we need then? I think it is awful that the developed countries take everything away from the underdeveloped ones. I can easily compare this to my roommate and I. In definition, I would be a caring developed country, and she would be the one that wants to take over the world. Right now, she has taken 3/4 of our room, this is comparable to what the developed countries are doing to the underdeveloped countries. Overall, ignoring my problems at the moment, I think it's completely unfair that developed countries are using more than their share. All of these countries should be the ones coming up with ways to save our environment instead of more ways to kill it. All we do is use more and more resources instead of coming up with ways of ruining everything around of us.

First Half of My Week

So far, my week hasn't been extremely stressful. It's been pretty nice actually. I got to see Mike for lunch on Sunday before I started homework. I finished my CHIPS homework early so I got to relax last night. I sat downstairs with the guys and made fun of the fact that they were still working on their cars. Even though they are obviously much better than my team's is, I was still happy I was done with it. When my dad came down last week, we went to Walgreens, and I got a Care Bears coloring book. While I was sitting downstairs last night, I colored a picture. It was Wish Bear swinging on a swing held up by a star. After I finish this post, I have to go back to homework. I need to finish my Lab Bonus and chemistry homework tonight. Then tomorrow night, I have to start working on my Post Lab. Stupid Engineering!

Last Post of the Week

Ok, so I've finally come to the realization that I need to do blogs throughout the week like I used to. Now, I just cram all of them into one night and hope I have enough interesting things in my life to fill the box. My mind goes blank after one of them, and I have to scrap for the rest. At least I do them I guess. They aren't difficult or anything, but they just take time. I don't like sharing too many things about my life, so blogs don't really fit into my personality! Since this is my last one for the week, I'm going to describe what the rest of my night looks like. With about 10 hours of sleep over 2 nights, I am hoping to be asleep by midnight. To do this, I have to finish this blog, make sure my essay is good to turn in, start my chemistry homework, review for my math test, and hopefully do the written out section of my engineering homework. Needless to say, I'm somewhat busy tonight. One thing I'm grateful for is the fact that my roommate's not here tonight, which allows me to focus much better! Since I have complained enough already, I will let whomever is reading this get back to something more interesting!!!

Excitement and Relaxation of Fall Break

Being one of the many people who stayed for the disappointing Ohio State game over fall break, I didn't get home until Sunday morning. Although disappointing, the game wasn't the only part of my night. After the game, I went out with Torsten, Billy, Carter, some people related to them, and Mike. We went to B-Dubs, which was awesome! After that, Mike drove some people out to 65 and made $80 while the guys and I walked back to Billy's car. We had to go to a parking garage for someone's stuff and saw a do not enter sign on the ground on the way out. What we did wasn't inappropriate........it was already on the ground? Haha, but anyways, after that, we went back to Owen and said our goodbyes. Sunday morning, Mike and I left for home at about 8:30 and somehow made it there by 9:40. I was sleeping, so I'm guessing he was speeding or there was no traffic. I already went through the best thing (house shopping) that happened over fall break last week, so I will spare you the boredom of going through it again! Something just as good as house shopping was what happened afterwards. I went home and took a 3 hour nap. Seeing as I never have time to take naps at school, this was wonderful. Another fun thing that I did was going shopping with my mom on Monday. We always have fun together and have become so much closer since school has started. I got some cute clothes and more stuff to organize my room. I would put a picture up of something, but my camera won't charge and makes me upset!!!

Cedar Point

So yesterday, I woke up at about 3:45 to something completely inappropriate to say in a blog. I had to get up in about 15 minutes and was counting down until my alarm went off. I went and got ready to load the bus at 5. We were off to Cedar Point. At 5 in the morning, it's kind of hard to be really energetic and excited, but I was. 12 hours filled with rides, having fun, and walking. As soon as we got to the park, we ran to the Dragster. We waited for the front row, and it was amazing. By the time I got off the ride, my hair was plastered back against the seat, and Torsten looked even more like Einstein! After that we went and got lunch at Johnny Rockets. Then we went and stood in line for Raptor, which is a very fun ride but probably not quite worth a 2 hour wait. After the Raptor, we stood in line for the new coaster, Maverick. This was one ride that would have been worth a 3 hour wait. When you walk into the line, there is a sign which gets across the point that not all of the cars make it over all of the hills. The car right behind ours got stuck!!! We had to sit and wait by the end of the coaster until they could get it working again. It was so much fun though. When we finally got off, we walked over to a funnel cake place. On the way, there was a Halloween trail with fog lights and scary people and all. I got kind of freaked out! While Torsten and Billy bought funnel cakes, Carter and I went to find a haunted house. When we finally found it after getting lost, we waited for the other two before we got in line. Although I jumped a few times, the haunted house was less scary than the trail. Since we had just under 2 hours left, we ran to the line for Millennium Force. It was a great way to end the night before we had to go spend 5 and a half miserable hours on a bus trying to sleep!

Home home home

Home is where the heart is…

I haven’t been so excited in a long time. I got home this morning at like 9:45. My parents sat down with me, and we ate breakfast. Then, my dad went out to do yardwork, and my mom and I sat and chatted for a while. Even though she came down this past Tuesday, I already missed her by like Thursday. The first few weeks of school, I only talked to her like once or twice a week. Now, I talk to her at least once a day! But back to the day… After we all got ready, we went out to Valpo, just off of Division and started house shopping. I guess they have been going these past few weekends and just didn’t tell me. We went up to this subdivision called Tuscany. There were some gorgeous homes on not so gorgeous lots. I was so excited about this one house. It was amazing. For some odd reason, I discovered that I love rounded corners…I don’t know who came up with the idea, but it’s a great one. It makes the inside look much more finished and professional. I love looking at designs and architecture. So really, I wonder why I’m an engineer…