13 Little Blue Pieces of My Soul

So, I just finished reading 13 Little Blue Envelopes by the lovely and talented Maureen Johnson. I just bought it a few days ago on a whim and have now read the entirety of the book in 5 and 1/2 hours. I've always loved travelling. Ever since my first flight to Disney World with my parents and sister when I was 6 years old I have loved every single thing about taking a trip. From the packing, to the realizing you forgot something, to the landing of the airplane when you get back to where you started. Ever since I reread Paper Towns by John Green, I've had a strange yearning to travel. To just pack up some of  my things and drive until I run out of gas or money or both. Now that I've read Envelopes, that desire is even stronger. Except now I just want to fly instead of drive. I love flying. It's part of the reason I picked aerospace as my major instead of mechanical. If I even get in. Yikes. I digress. I've now decided that if I do decide to go to graduate school, I want to go to California. Or maybe England. If I like Leeds when I study abroad there, maybe I'll go there for two whole years. I would love to get my working permit and work in a little pub in Leeds for a summer or two. I know that once I get out of college, I won't have any time to travel. Unless I some how get a job in a different country. That would be cool. Like Jess'ca. Except hers is only for 9 months. I want to live somewhere for at least 3 years. Long enough that I get comfortable there, but not so long as to feel stuck in a rut, as they say. I want to live in Cali and I want to live in England. Then I'll come back to whatever mundane job I'll have picked up in the future. I feel like the kids that are described at the beginning of books: nothing interesting ever happens in my life; nothing exciting, nothing spectacular. I'm just waiting for my Margo Roth Spiegelman or my crazy Aunt Peg.

My Books

I've now cataloged all of my books that I keep in my bedroom at my parents' house. The list is about 6 and 1/2 pages on Microsoft Word. Yup.

Now only to organize them by genre, then author's last name.

This is the life.

My First Christmas as an Only Child (sort of)

Yesterday was my first Christmas without my sister. No, she's not dead or anything *knocks on wood a bajillion times* She's in Austria, teaching kids English. I know that growing up is a thing that happens, but I hate it. I think I have some sort of Peter Pan/Holden Caulfield syndrome or something.

We "Skyped" with her as we were opening presents, but it wasn't the same. Usually, I wake her up in some obnoxious way on Christmas morning. And almost every year since we both started playing flute, we would play some Christmas duets at church on Christmas Eve. But now she lives far away (until June). And I had to deal with Kayla and Olivia on my own. Usually, one of take Kayla and the other takes Olivia. Gah.

I know she's having fun in Europe and that she's getting life skills she need to further her career as a teacher, but I still miss her a lot. And I might be working next week. Stupid life.

Happy Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

Good haul this year. My favorite presents? My Dr. Who Police Box zip up hoody and my melodica!!! I've decided to name my melodica Ariel. I thought it would be funny because the obvious name is Melody and Melody is Ariel's daughter. Other options were River, Pond, Amelia, Harmony, and Clef.

We're going to be heading to my aunt and uncle's house soon because my cousins (11- and 14-years-old, Olivia and Kayla, respectively) received Just Dance 4 for their Wii and they want me to come play with them.

My math grade still isn't up. I've asked around on the social media sites and it seems that only people who had my professor don't have their grades. I've given up.

My sister, Jess'ca, skyped with us while we were opening presents. It was a good time. This is my first Christmas without her. And this is also my first Christmas since I was seven without my dog, Bleu. Sad face. Life goes on.

Now I have to decide what to take with me to my aunt and uncle's house.

Math Grade (or lack there of)

I still don't have my math grade from this past semester. Seriously. Most of my friends have theirs now. I don't know why I don't. My math professor loved me. He actually knew my name and had an interest in my life and well-being. I can't even check what my GPA will be now because the school site has reset for next semester. I have my Spanish Grammar grade: B-. That's pretty much what I was expecting. But come on. Math actually pertains to my major. This is so frustrating. I feel like I'm just never going to know what my final grade was in math.

Anticipation

I only have three of my five grades back and it's been almost a week.

I received a B+ in Spanish Conversation, a B in Computer Science, and a C in Engineering Mechanics. Not the best I could have done in those classes, but good enough.

On the school website that tells you your grades, eLion, there is another tab called the "GPA Predictor." Pretty much, you enter the grades you think you're going to get for each class and it tells you what your GPA will be cumulatively and for the semester. If I enter only the grades I have right now, I have a 2.97 cumulatively and a 2.78 for the semester.* Best case scenario, I get an A in Math and a B in Spanish Grammar: that gives me a 3.03 cumulatively and a 3.12 for the semester. Worst case, I get a B- in Math and a C+ in Spanish, I'll have a 2.92 and a 2.67. Yikes.

It's mostly the anticipation that's killing me. That's how it is with most things for me. If I watch a scary movie, I'm more likely to scream or whatever right before something actually happens then during the actual scary part.

I just want to know my grades. I need to know my GPA before I apply for the aerospace major. Gah!

*Yes, my GPA is that low. Engineering is hard. A 2.7 is perfectly decent GPA for an engineering pre-major like myself.

Last Examen

My last exam for this semester is in about half an hour.

I'm just sitting here thinking, "Oh, God. What if I don't get into my major?" I have next to no idea what I'll do if that happens.

I checked my grades. I received a B+ in Spanish Conversation and a B- in Computer Science. GAH!

I need my GPA to either stay where it is or go up. It can't go down.

It can't.

First Third Final

I've FINALLY taken a final for this semester (if I don't count Spanish conversation, which I don't really). So now I am officially done with Computer Science! Yay! Now I have Mechanics and Calculus tomorrow. Both mine and my roommate's Mechanics finals are tomorrow at 8 am. It's gonna be a good time.

I'm probably going to get a C in my mechanics class. I know I talked about this in an earlier post, but I'm okay with it now. So long as I only get C+'s and above in all of my other classes, I should be fine.

Math, I'm expecting a good grade because the professor knows me and he's all about learning the material instead of getting the grade. That should be okay.

Spanish has to go well. It's supposed to be a GPA booster (aka an easy class), but right now I have a C+ in it. A C+! That's the lowest grade I've ever had in passing in a language class. I'm going to spend all day Thursday just doing the homework activities and review material. I might make some flashcards are Quizlet, too.

Now I have to go study for E Mch. Gross.

TFIOS

The Fault In Our Stars is one of my favorite books of all time. Yes, I have read all of John Green's work. Yes, I am a Nerdfighter. No, we are not people who fight nerds, we are nerds who fight who are made of awesome and try to decrease world suck.

At the end of October, I visited my friend, Zach, at his university, West Chester. We were acquaintances in 7th grade, friends from 8th grade to 10th grade, then really, really good friends since the around beginning of 11th grade...Or so. It's hard to put a definite timeline on relationships if there's never a true label.

So, I went and stayed in his little living room that he shares with his roommate and also one of our friends from high school, Ben. It was a good time and I made lots of new friends who are awesome and I wish we could be better friends.

We were joking around while I was there and I said that I would buy him TFIOS if he bought me a West Chester t-shirt. Well, the book store was closed and we didn't really have time to go somewhere else to buy me a t-shirt. Then I forgot about this whole thing until a few days ago.

I decided, on a whim, to send Zach a copy of TFIOS. He's been texting me while he reads it and gets to each part. He just finished earlier tonight. I then decided to pick up where I had left off a few months ago because, at the time, I didn't feel like crying. I cried while reading the last few chapters. Luckily, Victoria was studying in a different room, so she didn't have to witness the grossness of me sobbing.

It's books like TFIOS that really make me appreciate life.

Yes, I may have finals this week and hate every moment of it, but at least I am in a state of health that I am able to further my education and make the most of my short time on the mortal coil.

Yes, I may feel lonely at times, but I have friends who love me as much as is possible without it being romantic.

As Abraham Lincoln once said, at least according to the interwebs, "My best friend is a person who will give a book I have not read."

There you go, Zach.

Awkward Exam Time

Dear reader,
If you have an exam in a room that someone is studying, just go in and TELL THEM. Seriously.
Love,
Me.

That happened. I was in a classroom studying with my friend, Ken, and this girl came in and asked if we were studying. Yeah. We were. That was pretty obvious. There was a group of about 20 people standing outside and this older guy kept looking in. So, I decided to go ask what was up. Apparently, they had an exam that started at 12:20. It was 12:25 when I asked if they had an exam.

Seriously. Seriously. Exams have priority over people studying. Just kick us out. It's not a big deal. What is a big deal is that you make me the reason your exam is late. Not my fault.

Anyways. (Yes, I know that's not a real word. That doesn't stop me from saying it all the time.)

My math review last night was not as laborious as I thought it would be. It only went from 6:30 to 11 instead of 6 to 12. My professor was late because he misplaced his answer key for the worksheets we did for the review. It was actually a pretty good time.

Erinn and I then went to McDonald's to get food and such things. We were going to go to Taco Bell, but it was closed because it was Sunday.

Now I'm in a different classroom in the same building. The things is, is that this classroom is definitely going to have an exam in it sometime today. I think I may have had an exam in this room my first semester. Whatever. We'll just move again if that happens.

More Studying!

Here's today's classroom. It's actually a lecture hall. That girl is my friend, Erinn. We're in the same math class. But not really. My professor is the course coordinator, so his review is the best because he pretty much writes the exam. His review is in this room at six tonight, so we thought we would just study here until then. Victoria, my roommate just got here. She's over to the side->

Yesterday's studying went pretty well. I reviewed math for about 7 hours. Then I was treated to the surprise of two of my friends from high school being up here. The two of them, Matt and Bryan, and Matt's girlfriend, Katelyn, with whom I am also friends and also goes here, and her roommate Anne and I all went to a restaurant downtown for dinner together. It was a good time. Then we went to a clothing shop and looked around and made fun of the weird fashions. The four of them then went elsewhere and I met up with two other friends.

The two other friends' names are Dan and Cassie. They're dating. Just so you know. We met at an ice cream/milkshake/awesome place and sat there for a while and just talked. Then we went to Cassie's apartment and talked some more. Then played this AMAZING game called Pandemic. Not the computer game, the board/card game. It was awesome. We ended up technically beating the game but would have lost on the next turn if we'd kept going. Yeah. That's how the game works.

So, now I actually have to go study and things. Gross.

Studying. And...studying.

This is the classroom I will be studying in all day. Yay, chalkboards.

That is all.

Last Day of Classes! (For the third time)

I was going to write this post about finals, but I think I'll wait til next week, when finals are actually happening. When this post is published, I will officially be done with classes! Of course, Fridays are when I have class until 4:30...

As this semester comes to a close, I am becoming more and more stressed. I'm doing alright in all of my classes, in that I have at least a C in all of them. I got my E Mch quiz back from Monday: 75%! Woo! Normally, I get D's on those quizzes, so that's a nice change. My math professor this morning just outlined our whole course in three lines of writing on the chalkboard.

I have a lab in Cmpsc (computer science aka "comp sci") at 3:35, so I'll post this after that. I started typing this post before my first class this morning at 11, but I've only just gotten back to my dorm at 2:45 because I met some friends for lunch downtown. My friend had coupons for free sandwiches from McDonald's, so she got me a cheeseburger. I met her and two other guys at a smoothie place called Yogurt Express and we sat and talked for a while.

When I arrived at lunch, Becky, my friend who had the coupons, asked me if I had heard about the shooting. I looked at her incredulously and said, "What shooting?" I am keeping all of the people of Newport, Connecticut in my thoughts and prayers. How something like this can happen is beyond comprehension. Eighteen children. Eighteen. I can't even.

It brings me back to when I was in fourth grade and my sister in seventh. A boy who was in eighth grade brought a gun to the junior high, killed the principal and then killed himself. That was one of the worst days of my life and I was only ten years old. Later that year, or so I remember, a man brought a machete to one of the elementary schools in my district and tried to kill the principal, a teacher, and a group of kindergarteners.

There are so many cases of things like this nowadays. All of the school shootings and bomb threats. I wish the people who do these things would realize that they make our society seem like a bad thing. It really isn't. There are just a handful of these crazies who think it's okay to kill people. It's really not.

I can't think about this anymore or I'll start to cry or something. This is going up later than I thought it would. I'm done with this post.

Supposed To's

Today, we got our E Mch exams back. E Mch (pronounced "ee mehk") is short for Engineering Mechanics. I am in E Mch 213, Strength of Materials, right now.

I took E Mch 211, Statics, over the summer at Penn State York. I got an A. It was ridiculously easy. The professor pretty much gave us all A's.

E Mch 213 is A LOT more difficult. I don't know if it's the fact that I'm taking more classes now that it's the actual semester and not summer session or this professor just isn't as easy a grader as my professor over the summer. Either way, I'm not doing so hot in this class. And by hot, I mean well. I have gotten straight D's on my quizzes, a 75% on my first exam, an 81% on the second exam, and a 53% on the exam I just got back today. I'm going to have to ace the final in order to get any where near the grade I need in this class to keep my GPA at a 3.00.

One annoying thing is that my professor doesn't update grades. Or, I guess he technically does, but I have no idea what my overall grade for the class is. I know how many points I have and how many total points there are in the class thus far, but I don't know how to calculate my grade. It's a problem.

Another thing, which will explain the title of this post, is that I feel like I should be getting an A in this class if I ever want to be a real engineer. I'm supposed to be really good at the material this class teaches. I'm supposed to be able to do things like this in my sleep. I'm supposed to look forward to going to my engineering classes.

E Mch is my most dreaded class this semester. I find it boring and hard to follow. The professor knows all of our names, so it's not like I can use anonymity to cover up my disconnectedness. The only class that comes close to E Mch in dislike-ability is my Spanish 100, Spanish Grammar class. That class is just pointless.

And I know that everyone is going to be like, "Oh, it's just one class! It doesn't matter that much in the long run!" But what if it does? What if the job I end up having is specifically strength of materials? I had thought that my ideal job would be testing stresses on satellites as they are put into orbit, but if I can't pass this stupid class, how will I be able to that every day for the rest of my life? Am I even supposed to be an engineer?

En garde!

So, here at college/university, I am a member of the club fencing team.

No, I didn't fence before coming here.

Yes, I do love it.

No, I'm not that good.

No, that doesn't matter; it's still fun.

We practice every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday night in one of the athletic buildings here on campus called the White Building. I don't know it's called the White Building. Some rich guy probably paid for it and his last name was White. The building itself is red, so it doesn't really make as much sense as you think. But I digress.

Here at college, (at least, here at Penn State,) club sports practice later in the day than any extracurricular activities did at my high school. At my high school, the latest I ever had a practice was 10 pm and that was for musical leading up to opening night. Normal fencing practice (Tuesdays and Thursdays) is from 8:15 pm to 10:30 pm. On Sundays, which is extra practice (which I'll explain later) is technically from around 7 pm to around 10 pm. I think. I'm not sure. Oh well.

So, the difference between Tuesday/Thursday practice and Sunday practice:
Tuesday/Thursday practice:
8:15 pm - Arrive and chat with the cool kids in fencing. (Here, I use the word "cool" as an ironic adjective. We're probably some of the nerdy-ist kids campus. Just behind the Harry Potter club and Pokemon club. Of which some of our members are members.)
8:20 pm - "Story Time" (This is when our officers Evan, Tom, Kenny, and Elise bring us up-to-date on all things club fencing.)
8:30 pm - Warm-ups (aka DEATH. We run around the fencing room, stretch, six-inches, wall sits, etc. This is my least favorite part of any practice. But also a necessary part, I suppose.)
9:15 pm - Evening Prayers (A deceptive name, to say the least. This is when we break up into groups of weapons and do various drills that are specific to each weapon. If you don't know, there are three weapons in fencing: foil, epee, and sabre. I fence foil.)
9:30 pm - Group Drills/Open Fencing (What we do at this time depends on our coaches. Some nights we do whole team drills for footwork or blade work. Most nights though, we just fence.)
10:30 pm - Weapons Down (This is when the officers and coaches make everyone stop fencing and put their gear away and go home.)

That's what Tuesday/Thursday practices are normally like. Sunday practices are a bit different.
Since I take fencing lessons from one of the coaches, I arrive about a half hour before my allotted lesson time to warm up and get my gear from the closet. Yes, even though this is my second year fencing, I still own almost no equipment. I own a body cord. That's it.
Sunday practice (for me, at least):
6/6:30 pm - Lesson (My lesson time varies by week. It's just whenever there was an open spot on the lesson sign up sheet.)
7 pm - Open Electric Fencing (This is what Sunday practice is.)
10 pm - Go home

"Fencing electric? What does that mean?" you ask.
Well, reader of my blog (also, thanks for actually reading this!), the type of fencing we do here at Penn State and around the world uses electricity to score points. I'll describe fencing foil electrically, because that's really all I know for sure. I will be using the passive "you" to describe this.

For foil, you have a body cord, an electric foil, and a lame (pronounced luh-may). The body cord runs through your sleeve and connects with your foil. The other end of the body cord has two separate pieces, one of which gets clipped onto the bottom of your lame and the other is connected with the electric scoring system. Thus, when you score a touch on your opponent, the circuit is completed and the light and buzzer go off. There is also such a thing as dry fencing, which just mean that you don't have a body cord or lame and your foil doesn't have to be electric. That takes a good director, though.

Another fun fact about fencing: we call referees "directors." I think they're trying to change this so that we're more like other sports, but I like the word director better: it sets us apart from other sports and makes us sound fancier.

The point of all of this introduction was so that I could tell you, reader, that we had a tournament tonight instead of practice. I was on a team with Elise (the secretary of the club) and another girl named Danielle whom I actually just met tonight. We were the Tres Amigas because they made me pick our team name and I had been doing Spanish work all day. We didn't win, but I won one bout and got touches on two other people. That's a good night for me. I actually got one touch on Evan, the club president, which was very exciting.

We also had cake tonight because it was Jeff's last night with us. Sad, but the cake was really good.

The Blogger Inside

Making videos takes too long.

There. I finally said it.

I would love to be a vlogger; I am subscribed to many on YouTube. I even have a going video correspondence with my best friend from high school, Ginger Matt. But I need somewhere else to talk about things. Handwriting takes too long and I have so many stresses and anxieties. It would probably be beneficial to my health to channel them through writing. So, pre-New Year's revolution: I will blog. I'm not setting a number of a days a week or anything. Some days, I may blog more than once, some I won't write anything at all. I just feel like I need a creative/emotional outlet with finals coming up. So, there ya go. I'm going to blog.

Wisdom Teeth: Am I Less Wise Now?

I got all four of my wisdom teeth out this morning at 8 am. Blech.

The past few days, I haven't be able to think about it without almost having an anxiety attack.

I woke up at 6:40 this morning, my brain thinking it was a mistake. That usually happens when I wake up early. I got ready, put on sweatpants and a t-shirt and went down to the kitchen to read Harry Potter and the  Half-Blood Prince and try not to freak out. I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything, so that was terrible. I really like food.

My mom drove me to the oral surgeon's office and we had about a 5 minute wait until I was called back to the surgery room. To put it bluntly, I started to cry, hyperventilate, and shake all at the same time. I've discovered I am terrified of getting surgery. I also just hate that word: surgery. Bleaaah.

The nurses were talking to each other the whole time I was sitting in the chair hyperventilating. Then one of them put the laughing gas (nitrous oxide) mask on my nose and told me to breathe. Just to remind you, I was hyperventilating at this time. The nurse told me to slow down my breathing. Yeah. Okay.

I could hear my heartbeat through the monitor that they had connected to my finger. It was really fast. Then I started crying and the other nurse handed me a tissue. I started feeling tingly in my extremities and the nurses were talking to me and I to them.

After what felt like a long time, the tingly feeling started to go away and I stopped crying. The surgeon came in and asked how I was doing. I told him that I didn't feel tingly any more and he said I was just getting used to it. Great. I thought that meant I would feel the needle going in, which was what I was least looking forward to. But, no. It meant that when the surgeon lifted my arm, I said, "Op! Dead arm!" I had the tissue that the nurse had given me in my hand and the surgeon asked me to squeeze it as hard as I could. Then he put the needle in. Not the worst needle I've ever felt.

I was kind of freaked out at this point because I didn't feel sleepy or tingly at all. I was wearing my THON t-shirt and one of the nurses asked if I went to Penn State and if I participated in it. I said not really in college, but my high school had Mini-THON. She asked what high school I went to and I told her.


Then I woke up.


I kind of half remember the nurse helping me half walk half be carried to another room. I must've fallen asleep again or something because I woke up and the younger nurse was beside me and I was in a different room. I was shaking really badly and trying not to think about how I didn't remember falling asleep. A few minutes later, after I had stopped shaking, the nurse called my mom in and gave her some instructions for what order to take my medicine.

My mom walked me out the back door to the car because it was a shorter walk. I don't really remember the ride home. I remember that my mom asked me if I wanted ice cream and that we stopped at Giant. When we got home, I fell/sat in the recliner in our family room. My mom asked me how I wanted to take my first medicine, Vicodin. I just said that I didn't want it. She crushed it up (because I'm baby and can't take pills) and put it in the spoonful of pudding. Then my mom made me finish the pudding and drink a water bottle.

This was all around 9:30, 10 in the morning.

I then fell asleep, on and off, until 1 in the afternoon. I have since been either:
Trawling the internet
Watching my sister's Friends dvds
Watching the Olympics on TV
Reading Harry Potter fan fiction
Watching Nick and Disney on TV
Sleep more
Read HP and the HBP

All day, I've eaten:
Jell-O
Pudding
Applesauce
Popsicles
Ice cream
And now my sister just bought me rice from Giant and put it in the freezer to make it cold.

It's been a boring, hungry, sore day.

A Message of Well Come

Hello!

Welcome to my brand new, shiny blog!

Right now, there's not much going on in my life worth writing about. I'm hoping this will be different once the school year starts.

I go to Penn State University for engineering. I'm going into my sophomore year at University Park/Main Campus, whichever you prefer. This past year has been a very interesting one to be a freshman at Penn State. The JoePa statue was taken down and moved today. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. There's going to be some sort of announcement tomorrow at 9 am EST by the NCAA. I'll sort my emotions about whatever is announced then by writing down a stream-of-consciousness on here.

Also, a LARGE thank you to http://withjamandbread.blogspot.com/ for my blog name. There goes the anonymity. Oh well.