the swamp

Oh my God, it is so hot in here right now! The A/C's blowing nothing but hot air and the entire wing is in a rut. It sucks right now cuz I'm sure there's some mold spore waiting for his chance to wreak havoc on my allergy system.

Otherwise, things have been prety interesting. After spending a few days with my roommates, their personalities come out a little more. As our RA Todd said, "The honeymoon is over." Matt's cool. He reminds me a bit of Kyle Craig, though not as eccentric. I mean, how can you go wrong with a guy who likes The Price is Right as much as I do? Brian's definitely the ladies' man. The other night it took me two hours to realize that his room was closed and the girl who had been hanging out with us hadn't left. I'm sorry, I'm just not used to these kinds of things. And Dan's a lot more reserved, though he really likes X-Men. He's back in Mesa for the weekend, so I think the room is all mine for th etime being.

My classes are... interesting. Some more than others. Chem and chem lab are complete bores, but that's cuz I'm not into chem. Sitting in the first row yesterday, I was about to doze off had Aubrey Finkelstein not asked me a question. Math is very basic. First we learn vectors, then we do some calculus, and then we actually do vector calculus. My TRAD 101 is really cool, patterns in prehistory. Since it's an honors class, we get lecture from the head of the Anthroplogy department. The topic itself is neat, basically an itro to prehistory and the native cultures before interacting with each other (We go from Africa to Mesopotamia to Egypt to East Asia to North America and then end at South America with the arrivel of Cortez.) It's just really sad how, according to the prof, when you ask someone to name a famous archaeologist they usually respond with "Indiana Jones."

English is cool and weird. Out teacher, a classically trained poetess with a British education, is gonna us have us watch movies instead of reading books. Our first unit project is gonna focus on "Fight Club" (the movie, not the book) to analyze stuff. It sounds cool, but I have no idea how hard/easy this class will be.

And Ryan Maish is gonna be in my Engineering team. that's pretty cool. I forget what we're gonna do, but we already have 2 assignments due next Friday.

But this AC problem is hideous. Can I hang over at your place?

end.beginning

Also known as: A DAYS: Day 1

So at least I've managed to get the internet wokring in my room. Only poroblem is the router for the internet has no AC cord, so only one person can be online at a time. For now, this hasn't been too big a problem, but I'm sure it will be if we don't get this fixed soon.

But, damn, the last few days have just been a smorgasboard of events:

Went with Devin for lunch. Then we went to Bookman's and made fun the people who read Romance novels. He's leaving on Saturday for Rochester (well, they land at Buffalo...)

Moved 99% of my stuff into Skyview, the dormpartment. It has a stove, except you dont' know what temp it's set to. My 3 roommates are Dan, Brian, and Matt. They're pretty cool. A bit more jock than I'm used to, but, meh, gotta break down those walls sometime. Now might as well be it. (It's 99% cuz I forgot my laundry hamper and, more importantly, deodorant)

Saw a slough of people on my scurry through the first day. As I was scouting out for where my classes were, I saw JT by the Student Union. We talked for a while and then I headed to find the Engineering building. No lo puedo explicar, pero it just seems rather relaxig talking to JT. that's just cuz he's cool.

Saw memo Santa Cruz on the way back to my dorm... twice. First time on the sidewalks and then I spotted him in the Haury building (I was trying to find where my TAD class is gonna be). And I managed to help him find the Pas building to get to his class on time.

Thn I went home and chilled til I had to leave fore noon for chem. Alice is there, and Kristen, and David Hao, and Aubrey, and katie leitner, and Erienne, and James castaneda, and I'm sure someone else I knew but you get the point. The prof seems really cool. Now I gottas figure out how to do his online homeowrk.

Calc was cool with Alice. we had a pre-calc review (!!!!) that we were tyotally not expecting, but I think we did allright. We were almost tricked by "which curve is represented by Ax +By =C" cuz it had to be a DOWNWARD sloping line. Sillly us. Then it was of EnGR 102, arguably tyhe meat and bones of my next few years, or at least the bones. Saw more people in there, too, including an old friend Patrick whom I hand't seen since Fickett. He reminds me of myself, except he's a lot better at computers, and he's an appple person, but in a very dark room I'm sure someone would mix us up. Pat and I chilled at the Student Union, went to our 196a class (one hour once a week- the easiest class I'll probably have here!) and then I headed home.

Some things come and some things go along a diferent route, but I guess they all come back in some way or another. To be honest, I'm still unsure whther staying here was a good idea, but I think I can say that, from the looks of it, it wasn't a bad idea. Oh well, my online time is up.

random

3 short things:

Why is the army trying these new commercials? It'll make your unloving father proud of you. You'll gain respect from your pot-smoking friends. The other firefighters will know that you climbed a wall. I don't get it.

Also, I need to go talk with the math department, cuz it's almost just as easy to double major in Mech and Math than Mech and Aero. Cuz it's like Aero-8. Math-10. Econ-11. Astronomy-15. Engineering Math-12. That's how many more classes I'd need, so I could do both in 4 years.

I've been typing up people's names in quotes to see how many results each person gets in search engines (I've been using Yahoo, so it could be drastically different in Google). Not that it's really representative at all of the person- some of my friends had less than 10 :( - but it's just a random, fun thing to do when you're bored. From maybe like typing in 20 or 30 names, Mark Godfrey has the most so far, followed by Brent Morgan and then, surprisingly, me. From the looks of it, a majority of the sites are for the movie "Old School" cuz Luke Wilson played a guy named Mitch. Since the two are often together, it got picked up a lot. Oh well.

a little older

So today I went in the morning to put some of my stuff in my apartment. And it looks really nice. It's good to have an aunt who works in the apartment industry, cuz she was able to notice evry little detail so I wouldn't be charged for extra services after leaving (She even noticed these marks on the fridge that I just figured were shadows, but lo and behold it was something leaky from a long time ago.) It's kinda funny to make moving in a family affair. Even my nana went to make sure that it had enough holy water strewn about for protection. But I guess that's one of the things of coming from a Hispanic family, cuz everybody is involved in everything everyone else does. We know with great detail my cousin's roommate troubles and that my aun't boss is having an affair with supposedly one fo the maintanance workers at her apartment complex. Every freakin' little detail. But here I go leavin' and it makes the family closer together.

The thing is I therefore have no real sense of the word privacy. Maybe that will make sharing an abode with three relatively complete strangers a little easier, I'm not sure. The half of me that wanted to go to Rice and MIT so bad is ready to just cut all communication ties from my folks so I can live my own life and make my own mistakes and learn from them as much as possible, and the other half of me (although these 'halves' may not be equal in size) is just a scared little Mexican kid leaving home and comfort and security. That Lazlow guy comes to mind. He was the one with the hierarchy of needs, right? Anyway I'm not even sure where my main source of food is gonna come from. Though I know there's gonna be a steady supply waiting for me (literally) at home, part of me just wants to prove that I could make it on my own. I could find a job with enough money to pay for food and expenses. I could manage my schoolwork and social life properly. I could keep my grades high to maintain my scholarships. But for me the fact that there is a net to fall back on is actually destructive rather than productive. I do better knowing there's no second chance, so the first one has to count. I know that if I don't have to dive in (or drive or work or hook up with people) then I won't.

In other news, Mom's got her second surgery scheduled for the 29th of this month. If she goes in at sunrise, she can be out by noon, which is when my first class starts on Mondays. And this time there will be 2 doctors at her side, which increases the chance of success by some amount I'm sure.

But I'm sure these feelings of antsyness or anxiety are normal. I just don't like them.

questions

I went with mom to get her pelvic MRI this morning at 5:30 in the morning, though they wouldn't let me in so I had to stay in the waiting room for a half hour. To pass the time, I saw that they had this week's issue of time, and they were blabbing about the whole biology vs creationalism mumbo jumbo. And, to my bewilderment, I read the entire article. Apparently I am less susceptible to boredom at 6 in the morning. They were talking about this one anti-Darwinist mathematician who explained that the pobability of chance mutations for one complex organ. let alone all of them, is so astronomically small that the only logical explanation was some sort of "agent" aka God in disguise who catalyzed the whole process. The biologists just say that it's a bunch of hooey and all they want to see is a hippo that dates to the premetozoan era and they'll shut up about this Darwin nonsense. There was one Ivy Professor, and he was like- yes I believe in both evolution and creationism. I just believe that God put the amoebas here and then evoution took its course- GAH! Sometimes I wish people would listen to themselves.

Also, if it was a pelvic MRI, why did they have to put mom in head first? You know she hates the dark.

Oh Goodie goodie gosh!

Please tell me I did NOT just quote the Care Bears.

Anyway, so I was looking at my UofA student account (my student link for all you peoples in the know) and I was looking at my transactions account. It says as of Friday I owe nothing (but which has now changed cause I charged my textbooks on my account), but it showed some random transaction for some check and then it said like 700 bucks. Confused, I sent an email to the finanical aid office to inquire what this was. I got the response this morning.

I AM GETTING A CHECK FOR $700 IN THE MAIL!!!!!

Apparently, I had spillover funds from my scholarship money. Now obviously this is all going back to the U in terms of book money and food money, but YAY! It pays to be smart! I got 10.5K for being a National Hispanic Scholar, 1K for just being a National Hispanic Engineering student, and the other K from winning the state math competition. Hey, it's something.

Also, today is my nana's 78th, though she doesn't look a day past 72.

Went to the 99cent supermarket yesterday to get a few basic apartment supplies I'm gonna need at Skyview. Since there's gonna be no janitors, we have to clean the place ourselves, which makes it a little more realistic in terms of living off campus. We got just some basic stuff: mops, cleaners, paper plates, silverware, tissues, paper towels, etc. Cuz I'm a frugal little bastard, though for some reason I had no problem charging full price for my textbooks on my student account. To me that means I should never get a credit card.

Gonna start moving some stuff on Wednesday and gradualize my stuff throughout the week (partially because my folks want to get in to clean the place themselves). This is perhaps one good thing about living at home. That and cheap tuition. But I just find it hard to believe that in a matter of days we'll all be going our separate ways, travelling to distant lands, only seeing each other after school and online.

Now I have to figure out which stuff to take. Crap, now I have Journey in my head

Someday love will find you
Break those chains that bind you
One night will remind you
How we touched and went our separate ways
If he ever hurts you
True love won't desert you
You know I still love you
Though we touched and went our separate ways

And then that guitar solo, which is pretty good. doooooo doooo, do do dooooo doooooooo, do do dOOOOoOoo dooo, doo dooo dododododo doo dooooo dooodoodoooooooo....

today

Well, today we came back from my mom's visit to the surgical oncologist (cancer doctor, though they think the lump is non-cancerous). What else is there to say but that I'm elated and even more pissed off at the same time.

So we went to this technical clinic up on Craycroft near TMC. She was signed up to meet a doctor Joe Buscemy or something, but then this lady came in. Her name's Wendy, and let's just say it's a good thing she was there.

Let's put it this way:


SHE managed to do the PROCEDURE, in 20 MINUTES, IN THE CLINIC, what
the GUY doc COULDN'T DO last week, in 4 HOURS, IN THE FREAKING HOSPITAL!

She just went in, scooped off some lining, and was done.Naturally, I was in the other room while this was occuring. This lady even finally explained to Mom (and me after they let me back in) what her problem was. This growth they're calling a fybroid or something is not at the entrance to mom's uterus as originally thought, but rather that it's made itself comfy smack dab in the middle of her cervix. And it's growing, and since her cervix isn't dilated, it's putting pressure on the lining, which pushes it outward and puts additional pressure on her bladder, which is the main cause of her UTI's as of late. She's got to get an MRI for her cervix and reproductive system on Monday, and then another consultation on Tuesday to try and figure out a date for surgery and/or what to do. They're afraid that if the fybroid has expanded to the insides of the cervix, then they'd have to prolly perform a complete historectomy at the behest of the first GYN that she went do, but obviously he doesn't know much to begin with. So maybe things are having a light at the end of this tunnel. It's just weird talking about lady parts especially since I don't have them.

The moral of the story? Women make better female doctors, period.

Now I don't knwo what's up with the HTML, cuz I don't get it at all. But anyways, I got a pretty red water bottle today.

Also, I think I've uncovered the root of my fear to drive. It's been repressed for God knows how long, but I just remembered it the other day.

I was 12. My cousin Tony was visiting from El Paso and it was my mom's job to take him back. Naturally, I had to come along. It was easily 4, 5 in the morning. There was no one in sight and darkness loomed everywhere past the headlights. Suddenly, on a straight stretch of highway outside of town, my mom pulls the car over. KNowing that Tony was almost old enough to get his permit, she decided to let him go ahead and drive for a little while; nobody was in danger.

But that idea just freaked me out so much. I demanded to get out so they could go on and practice and crash without me, but mom wouldn't let me out. At that time the unknown vast of nature seemed safer than Tony behind the wheel, but I was stuck in the backseat so I was trapped. The whole time Tony was driving, maybe 3 minutes, I was screaming like bloody murder the whole time because, even to this day, I have never felt so scared in my life. I felt like I had absolutely no control whatsoever about my own life, and it scared me to death. I'm decently sure that's why I don't want to drive, because I don't want to have that feeling ever again (that and the dream I had where I was driving and hit a little girl when I was 15 years and 7 months old) . And now my permit's gonna expire. God, this is pathetic. I mean, I'm practically 19, and I still don't know how to fucking drive. The only reason I feel at all compelled to get it is not for my own benefit, but so I can stop pissing off my friends and family who I have to keep bumming rides on. Though apparently this negative motivation isn't very productive. Plus I have no self esteem, so that probably plays a part in it, too. But dammit, I just don't wanna bother anybody to try and teach me how to drive cuz it just seems like a waste of time for them either then or later. And I don't even know how to ride a fucking bicycle.

badger badger badger badger

MUSHROOM MUSHROOM

So yeah, this is in our patio. I doubt it's safe or even edible, but it looks cool. Or it would if it weren't so blurry :(

no go

um, well, yeah so,

Mom's surgery was a complete waste of time. Nothing was removed, and now she's a lot more sore. From what I've been told, the problem is like trying to put a golf ball through the skinny end of a funnel. So she's not as bad off as she would normally be, but still it totally sucks for everyone. Phooey. And we have no idea how much this crap procedure is gonna cost. So now we have to get more referrals and set up new appointments and GAH! It sucks it sucks it sucks.

my room, it is clean

My things have been somewhat straightened
you can actually see this corner now

No more extreme electrical hazards

I have actual covers on my bed, be they randomly assorted

And I could actually do homework on this thing now!

out of touch

I will be away from the computer pretty much for the next four or so days. My mom's going into the hospital to get some surgery done (It's a feminine issue). The doc says there shouldn't be any complications, and it's a same day thing- she'd have to spend at most one night stuck at Saint Joe's, though she's told me she dowsn't want to spend any more time in the hospital than she has to, which is understandable. So she's a gonna be bedridden at home recuperatin', and I'mma gonna be basically a slave boy for the time being. Now is the one time I wish I actually could drive, but then the fear sets back in. Well, since I'll be at home, I might be able to get online, but I ain't makin' any promises.

normal people

Apparently I don't bowl like normal people do, or rather they don't bowl the same way I do. See, apparently most people release the ball with their palm pointed upward, but I've always done it with my palm down, so my ball winds up having this initial backspin, but then corrects itself as it goes along, so when it hits the pins there's more kinetic energy in the forward motion than in the spin, and so it makes the pins tend to scatter about a little more.

So my friends made me try and bowl like they did. And I did fine, maybe even a little better than what I usually do. I was getting nines and sixes and I think one strike, and it has this weird little left hook at the end right before it hits the pins, which I think is weird, but the fact of the amtter is that it just felt so weird, and though I was doing all right with it (my average is about 110 but I got like 124 on that game), one game's too small a sample size to determine if it's more effective for me to bowl like normal people do. Then, to add more insult to injury, when I tried to go back to my regular spin, I got 3 empty FRAMES in a row!

But I like my way. Sure, it's a little more off kilter. Sure, it puts more stress on my ankles, but dammit it's what I like. It's who I am. And I am not a pussy. I'm just afraid to drive. I've convinced myself that I am not a good driver because I take everything into perspective, and if that's just a euphemism for me saying that I can't pay attention to the road, then so be it. Half is me is hurt, but the other half doesn't give a crap about what you think. I'm not normal people, and I don't think you are, either.

in over my head

I think I feel the need to figure out the rest of my life because if I don't then I'll just be seemingly runnning around in circles. That's why my search for the perfect combo of majors and/or minors has been so excruciating. Within the past week, I've been looking more and more into the various plans and jobs that come with different majors, as well as what each actual branch of Engineering entails. Maybe I feel pressured to figuring out my plan just because as far as I know all my other friends are all over 99% sure in their endeavors, or at least that's how I perceive it, and here it feels like I'm stuck in a cloudy mass of dreams. Meh.

As for the curricula I've been pondering over, I figure I could get a double major in both Mech (or Aerospace :) Eng AND Eng Management in no more than 5 years. Plus, Eng Management is the first major I've seen at all that utilizies my AP Stats credit! Cuz it looks like I'd only need an additional 11 or so classes, and the management major has courses that vary from Psych to Business to Systems Eng to English to Accounting! So it'd be kinda like a broad boost to a Mech Eng focus (or Aerospace- seriously I could have until mid junior year to switch w/o any repercussions). There's just a very fine line between what I'd want to do and what I can actually do, cuz for me it all boils down to money, and money > happiness in a business sense. But Idunno, now is not the time to worry. Now is the time to go bowling.

Posiible majors: Mech Eng AND/OR Aero Eng AND/OR Systems Eng AND/or Engineering Mathematics AND/OR Eng Management AND/OR just Math and/or econ?

Posiible minors: Spanish, Econ, Psych (Psych has temporarily fallen down to third place in the minors countdown, but will it jump back up?), Math, Systems Eng, Astronomy, Creative Writing, etc.