Check out this travel blog & project:Singing Bridges and the travel blog.
"I love bridges, the way they arch out across an emptiness to connect with the other side. They occupy a space in-between, the threshold between worlds, countries and states of mind. Looking fragile and tenuous, resembling a spider-web spun across the void and creating a path where there was previously only air, the bridge hangs suspended improbably by threads. You imagine these could snap at any moment, but they are engineered strong and resilient. The cables look like harps, waiting to be plucked by angels or by passing giants. How do the cables sound? Could they become strings in an instrument made of bridges stretching around the earth?"--Jodi Rose

Upbeat
Current music I'm listening to [right now]: Hawa Mein Udati Jaaye. I really want Bombay Viking's old cd: WOH CHALI. I almost bought it for 125Rs online, but I'm not sure on what the international shipping charges would be. I think my best bet will be to go up to Devon and search for it. I'm positive it'll be in the Hindi music stores there. Everything can be found on Devon Street. Including Maazaa!!!, which I would *love* to drink right now. On my next free Saturday (in three weeks) my plan is to go up there (it's a long venture when you don't have a car!) and do a little shopping.
Essay
I love core bio. I really do. But I'm just not in the mood to write this essay tonight. I was so excited about these essays too, and I still am, I just can't communicate what I want to say very accurately right now. Ah well. It'll all come at 4am I suppose, right when I wish to be sleeping the most. Such is life of a college student. ;o)
OHh! I know what I need. A little PHISH. Golgi Apparatus to get me in the mood. hehehe.

Your deadline: Monday. Or no shoutout. You hear me? ;o) My one and only dedicated reader.
I wish to be yours.

Why am I such a dork.
This is just so addicting.

Your First Geology Lesson.
and to let you in on my favorite word: a m y g d a l o i d a l
(we joke we're naming our kids after basalt)

Ok, time for a little organization. I’m leaving for Minnesota on vacation this Thursday really early. This means I have massive amounts of work to do between then and now. This is all pretty much boring to you, so I’m posting it more for my own sake.

TO DO:
Plan GeoUnion Trip
-Email to the listhost the info
-Make lodging reservations
-Fax tax exemption sheet
-Writeup budget
-Submit budget to the department and get it approved
-Put up flyers around campus
-Give all other responsibilities to someone else and refuse to do any more.
Biology
-Fly paper
-Viral Vectors short paper <--not doing it!
-Fruit Fly Lab Pre-lab, Part II
-DNA Lab Writeup
Summer Applications
-Sumit NASA app
-Calculate GPA
-Decide if I’m applying to LPI (NO)
-Email Upward Bound
-Statistics Problem Set #3 <--go to office hours to ask a question
-Global Tectonics Lab
-Clean my room!
-Email Ms. Dolin
-Get better very very very very soon
-Mail my Amazon package back
-update GeoUnion webpage
And If I Have Time: ....
-find and install Excel
-Install the Connectivity Package

how did i not know what bcc was until last night? silly me

This just seems crazy: Computer Worm Slows Down Net Traffic. Globally!
Our University ethernet was down for eleven hours this morning. I feel horrible for all of the businesses in South Korea!

This morning started off not so great. Last night I stayed up relatively late (for being sick) and I realized that I had missed one step in Stata for my Statistics problem set. This meant that I would have to wake up extra early this morning, get to campus to the computer lab and re-do the entire thing. Fine. Ok. I can do that. So I woke up at 6:50am this morning, actually on my own, and looked outside to an absolutely gorgeous sunrise. I had a really bad fever all night and was drenched in sweat, it felt so disgusting. It was really hard to sleep...after waking up though I was really tired and feel back asleep 40 minutes later. Then I woke up later and realized that I needed to catch the bus to get to campus...I grabbed some toast and peanut butter and went down to the busstop, only to realize that I was 30 seconds late and the bus was just pulling away. I looked down to realize that my Icelandic wool & fleece hat had big splotches of peanut butter on the inside. This did not make me happy, neither did walking to campus coughing like crazy until I felt like I was going to throw up (my lungs just can't seem to take the below-freezing coldness).
Peanut Butter
So now I'm trying to look up how to get peanut butter out of wool and fleece. Anyone know? I've looked on google with no luck, only to find: The Peanut Farmer Magazine, The Peanut Butter and Jelly Press Catalog, 2000 Alternate Uses for Peanut Butter, and even Cleaning a Gravestone.
Ok, but despite being sick today there were some good things that happened. One is that I finished my Summer Links application and turned it in to the University Community Service Center. This is a big accomplishment for me this week considering that I just decided two days ago to apply and scrounged up some reference letters. It felt good to hand in, even if it wasn't as complete or as perfect as I could have liked. Another good thing was biology (which I still really like!) and hearing about our lab next Monday where we'll get to experiment around with our own DNA.

i hate being sick.
bringing an entire box of tissues with you to campus is never a good sign
but at least i made it to campus.

I've discovered that my quality of entries posted here has a positive association with the weather with a very nicely fitting least-squares regression line [can you tell I'm been doing my statistics problem set recently?]. So, until Spring (which for Chicago, means late May) expect nothing out of this blog. ;o)

Time to share. (Thinking back to warmer weather)

Definitely NOT a fan of the cold. Brrrrrrrrr. (14 degrees, feels like ZERO (windchill) according to weather.com). And only to get colder

Sick. Tired.

Instead of Chicago...: Tupai Atoll, near Tahiti, a heart shaped atoll near french polynesia.
how awesome is this!
thanks Michael.

I just ate Spaetzle. for the first time ever. and now my throat is so swollen it hurts to swallow. correlation?
I JUST HAD THE BEST EGGROLLS OF MY LIFE. Thank you sylvie's parents!

Today, although I have accomplished nothing in the academic realm, has been a productive day...
All morning: Woke up early even after going to bed at 4am! Then proceeded to skip church to bake cookies and sing praise songs in the kitchen. End result: about three dozen chocolate cappuccino-chip cookies! Yumyumyum.
Mid-Afternoon: Gave cookies to Alex, who has so nicely helped me with computer troubles and I re-installed the Microsoft Office Suite so I can actually write up my Biology lab tonight. I also connected my computer to the printer. Oh it feels so good to be back with luxuries. Although this paying 6cents a page now is really annoying. But nothing that big to complain about.
3pm: Gregorian Spanish Chant and Polyphony (16th Century) at Rochefeller Chapel.
5pm: Lovely Pierce dinner with Karin where I ran into my prospie from last year who now lives in my old house! Hurray for Portland girls at the UofC.
6pm: Training for working with Safe Space. I am volunteering once a week to teach/have fun with kids at a Domestic Violence Shelter. It looks like a great program, and the theme for this quarter is Art/Music/Dance from Around the World. :o)
Now I'm back in my apartment about ready to meet with a girl from the environmental club about the "Battle of the Bulb" program at Stony Island. (I guess I'm helping to present tonight at my house meeting?), hang up posters, and figure out how to get recycling to my dorm.
It's been a good day. I feel like I've actually accomplished something, even though I have many hours to go when I think about starting homework tonight... oh well. ;o)

After Shakira, a night of dancing.

What words do I use to try to explain?
I don't even understand. Just cry.

So much to choose.
So little time.
Sometimes in my room I feel like I'm in an earthquake. And I hold onto my chair, and everything is shaking. I look around my room and nothing is moving, but I swear I feel my room shake, the floor move, my body frightened and unstable. Maybe it's the Metra train, maybe it's my imagination, but it's driving my crazy!

[fingers crossed]
but i'll have relief either way.
Just tell me!

A few interesting things have happened lately. First, I've been impressed by my Core Biology class. After long conversations hearing people complain on how horribly boring core bio is, I have been so impressed by my professor (who is great!--she uses so many analogies and makes it fun, while still going really in-depth), my lab TA is really cool (and coincidently, also from Portland, Oregon), and my discussion TA is a fourth-year Genetics grad student who is really really really nice. She's from Texas, seems very laid back and very smart. We ended up having the 50 minutes fly by as we debated about human cloning. Also, in lab Monday night I was amused by my fellow classmates and actually had done "designing" our own reaction time experiment. I'm looking forward to the rest of the labs, and especially working with my fun lab partners.
Yesterday I had a fun evening. GeoUnion had our bi-weekly "Leisure Time", which this week consisted of a potluck spaghetti/brownie/garlic bread dinner and playing the board game Survivor. hehehe. Some people in our geophysical science department are a little obsessed with the show. Nick even burned a CD of the music, so each time we voted people off or people left it was even more authentic. It was such a UofC night it was so much fun! ;o) Even the graduate students came and played. I love my little geosci community.
So from there I left early (and after an hour and a half still hadn't been voted off) and walked to the Med where I met up with the people who I went to India with last quarter. Everyone showed up except the usual suspect: Ashish. ;o) It was really really neat to see everyone again. And we squooshed 15 of us into one table.

Of interest:
1
2
3: My vote: No way!

Lesson learned today: Never ever never ever wear my leather winter coat in the smoking part of the Med. Now my entire closet smells. Y U C K
and leather is not febreezable, right?

Do I want to apply to the Lunar and Planetary Institue Internship in Texas? Not my idea of the ideal location, but it looks so interesting. Hmmmm.

I'm Back!
New OS (Windows XP), newly re-installed hard drive (thanks Alex!!!). And I'm back online...they've approved me back onto the network! No more attacker having control over my computer. And the first thing that I do: reinstall AIM. hehe.

sleepy. sick (but definitely not as sick as others). unable to concentrate and wishing bio wasn't going to be 3 hours long this evening. my first lab. yea [insert sarcasm here]. my computer still hasn't been "activated" to be back on the network. but it better be by tonight! And sometime soon I'm going to have to learn Stata. tonight tonight.
I went to Kangeiko this morning. It was good, in the sense that I got to see a lot of friends. But also not so great in the sense that the activities are just very boring. I ended up leaving early after walking around the indoor track a few times. i'm still deciding if i should attend tomorrow morning or not. pretty much the only reason i'd go back is to get the free tshirt at the end of the week. but i'd like to see it to make my decision. hmmm. i'm in this for the wrong reasons. ;o)

Deliberation
I am thinking about going to Kuviasungnerk & Kangeiko tomorrow. But 6am is just sooooo early. Especially when you factor in walking a mile in the freezing cold to get there by that time. Yikes. I will do this if someone volunteers to do it with me... anyone? I hope it is good this year. I'm having my doubts. Whoever is planning it this year from COUP is doing a horrible job. So far they've hung up some horribly bland posters with limited information and mis-spellings for what little stuff is presented. They even spelled the name of the event wrong!

Cooking
My first meal that I cooked in Stony: taco salad: tonight. Easy simple good. We're totally stocked up on food now. Who would have thought three penny-saving girls could spend $106 for just one shopping cart of groceries at the Co-op? ... and most everything we bought was on sale too. Prices these days are craziness.

The Worst Nightmares of My Life
One strange thing about me is that I do not dream. Well, I've been informed by many people that I do dream every night, and that it's just an issue of remembering my dreams in the morning, so I guess the most accurate description is that I hardly ever remember a dream that I have. At the very very most it's about two a year and they're usually about 5-10 seconds long (just a picture of something, or a small action). In middle school I tried a whole bunch of techniques to try to remember my dreams in the morning, but with no luck. And all of those creative writing assignments that were given out about how you're supposed to recall a strange dream that you've had and write more about it...I never could do those.
Last night was way different than normal. Maybe it's because I have a low-temperature fever, or that I'm a bit sick with a little sore throat, but for some reason I had two dreams last night that when I woke up this morning I distictly remembered. To be more exact, they were nightmares. This puts the tally of nightmares (remembered in the morning that is) I've had in my life to three. The first one I had when I was little in pre-school which I still remember was running through a cave with the Berenstain Bears and having hot red lava chase after us. But the two I had last night were terrible, much different, and extremely realistic. I would much prefer not remembering my dreams at all than recalling them again.

The Simpsons & Portland!
In other, much more entertaining news, Ruthie emailed me a neat website about Portland, Oregon which I had never seen before. It's pretty neat! It's all about Matt Groening, the author of The Simpsons, who grew up in Portland, Oregon going to one of my rival high schools. I guess I had heard rumors that The Simpsons was somehow connected to the City of Roses, but I never really knew that it was for sure. Now my city has way more connections than I ever thought possible. Definitely check out Matt Groening's Portland website, and also this article from the PortlandTribune. I especially like the end of the article: In his heart, he says, he’s still an Oregonian: “I’m just temporarily relocated. I’m moving back. I love Portland.”

Paul bought me glow-in-the-dark silly putty today at Pearl! What fun.
Today at Taking The Next Step and the Westin downtown, one of the panelists who graduated with three concentrations from the UofC used the term Econ-Whores.
Do I want to work with the Center for Disease Control in New York City being an West Nile Virus Investigator for the summer? It's a paid internship, and it sounds neat, and I'm [almost, maybe] guaranteed the job. Hmmm.

Ruthie and Arline made my day so great. Thanks you two.

I've forgotten. Uncontacted. Too busy. And horrible. Home and friends, both. Wouldn't I like to know about his health? How could I forget? I can tell by the slurred speech I should have called sooner. Read sooner, acted sooner.

I am not disappointed in you. I *never* have been, Truthfully.

I love you so much.

Merry Christmas 2002!
I got a gift certificate to amazon.com from my cousin Chris last year. It expires after one year and for some odd reason I hadn't spent it yet. So I did some fast shopping today and came up with three new purchases:
Skip-Bo
Oregon Scientific RM806 Radio Controlled Travel Alarm Clock, Blue
John Mayer's new CD: Any Given Thursday (coming out February 11th, 2003)
all for just $2.39 out of my own pocket. Quite a deal!

All I want is pad thai from Noodles Etc. But no one is free to go out to dinner with. :o(

what a beautiful day!

My compuer is slowly working towards being good again. Last night a nice guy from the 5th floor of Stony helped me set up a hub and make a network connection with my roommate's computer, then I pretty much transfered all the important stuff from my harddrive to her computer for safe storage as I re-install mine in the upcoming days.
So Tuesday and Thursday I don't have any classes now. And I don't even know what to do! I'm bored. I think this means that I really need to get a job or start volunteering somewhere. This is the first quarter of my life that my schedule actually looks pretty empty:
MondayWednesdayFridays:
9:30-10:20 Global Plate Tectonics
10:30-11:20 Statistics 220
2:30-4:30 Core Biology
Tuesdays [but only occasionally]
2:30-5:00 Global Plate Tectonic Lab
add in the biology discussion group somewhere in there and that's the entire academic schedule. so tiny. it's a pretty nice break for once. now i just have to figure out what to do with the rest of my time. any suggestions?

First Day of Winter Quarter
Statistics was boring, and the professor was just ok, not excellent like I expected. But maybe he just needs some warming up in the quarter. ...let's hope so. But I might change to another section, I'm not sure yet.
Global Tectonics: We had a meeting today to decide when the class will meet, what we'll be doing, and where. My professor is taking off for Taiwan tomorrow and won't be back until the 20th, so it's sorta like having independent study sessions as a class with the TA. We all got assigned articles and are going to have discussions on them each MWF for class. I am presenting Friday. yikes. Gotta start reading.
Biology: mean MEAN mean. They gave us a pop quiz the first day! And our teacher didn't even show up, there was a sub! It's sorta like an extrance placement exam and we'll get put into sections by how smart we all are. I really wish they would have told us that we'd be having this. I haven't taken biology since junior year of high school, and I would have liked to refresh my memory a little bit before diving into a test that will determine the rest of the quarter for me. arg. Why are proteins essential for life? How is it that organisms can feel/taste/touch/see/smell? (explain on the molecular level)? What is the purpose of the spleen? What is the purpose of the liver? What does DNA stand for? [I forgot the D! How could I forget that! panic]. Some questions were easy, like on symbiosis and do this chromosome chart, etc etc. And some I totally forgot translation/transmission/transmigration/whatever. yikes. i did terrible. Sudeep would be ashamed. I hope you're not grading mine!

Scary!
Ok, so this morning after church I picked up my key and RJ helped me move into my new apartment. I hooked up my computer and authenticated it, was online for an hour, then suddenly the internet stopped working and I kept trying to get back on, but I never could. Finally, a few hours later, I used my roommate's computer to check my email and here is part of a message I get:
"We noticed some odd traffic coming from your dorm room computer in
the last few days. Upon closer inspection, we have noticed that your
system appears to have been compromised by a remote
attacker or a worm such as the Opaserv worm. You should now consider
your computer and everything on it to be controllable by this attacker.
We have removed your computer from the network in order to minimize
the amount of damage this attacker can do to you, your computer, our
network, and other networks across the Internet.
You will most likely need to reformat your hard drive and reinstall
your operating system from scratch before we will allow your machine
back on the network.
We strongly urge you to consider changing any passwords you may have
typed into your computer over the last several weeks (online banking,
registrar, etc.). It is common to see attackers install software
programs to obtain such information and transmit it back to a remote
site."
I am so freaked out. How did this happen? How can I fix this? Yikes! I hope they can't get to my bank account.....
to add to the drama my closet door is broken, and my authcode doesn't work for some reason (meaning that I can't make outgoing calls). Ahhhhhhhhhh. This hasn't been a good week. But things can only get better, right? ;o) Let's hope so with classes starting tomorrow morning!

I'm back in Chicago! Staying the RJ tonight and then tomorrow I'll pick up my key to my Stony Island Apartment. It started snowing like crazy in the past three hours and it is so beautiful. Noodles Etc for dinner tonight. Pad Thai once again. ;o) Called home and my dad is back from the hospital, released from the Urgent Care Critical Desicion Unit, now on about five pain killers and has a lot of decisions to make. Yikes. But everything is so much better today!

Yells and excruciating pain. 911 and an ambulance. EMT in the house. Not the ideal morning. Not the wake up call from my mom that I was expecting. I wasn’t anticipating leaving back to Chicago tonight with my father in the hospital. And my sister’s boss doesn’t even believe her when she asks to get off only two hours early. “You have an obligation to work, not to your family” I can’t believe he say that!

Sketchy eye contact. I hung on just before I almost broke. I haven’t cried in a long time. And still not yet. [but soon]. hopefully out of happiness. this time when i look back at friends i’ll see the smiles. the care. the time. the effort. not the other.
Goals (more for me than for you):
*update address and contact information*send thank you*thank people for genuine kindness*snuggle some preemie babies, and actually apply this time*plan my spring break*find plane tickets [to MSP?]*develop photos*scan*compile online*update webpages*apologize for broken promises, however little they may seem now*c r e a t i v i t y for once, for all*find my domain*learn to like math, or at least statistics

you still can get on my nerves. all of you. and you can still hurt me, you know i care. but you obviously do not. i'm sorry.

Highlights of the day: Morning on Mt. Hood with the Nordbye’s, Lunch with Jake downtown near the PSU campus at Olé Olé, walking by myself downtown in the rain and admiring my city, the friendliness of Portland residents.
Disappointments: walking the half-mile home after hopping off the bus and being [purposely?] splashed from head to toe by some stupid driver, accidentally leaving my fleece pants at Kate’s house, realizing that all of the stuff that I want to bring back to school is not going to fit in my suitcase.

I watched Minority Report three and a half times in the last three days. It’s funny because all summer long I really wanted to see that movie, but never did, and now my two “second-families” rented it to watch with me. A bit of an overdose, but at least it’s a good movie!
I used to think that I might be a librarian when I grow up. But periodicals are not newspapers, how did I ever overlook this?
Time for me to pack and I don’t want to do so. Someone come over and hang out with me. My last night at home. :o(

Let them call it mischief:
When it is past and prospered 'twill be virtue.
--- Ben Jonson, Catiline (act III, sc. 3)

Back from the Mountain. Being with Kate again just makes me feel so good. Things just don't change. I'm content. I'm happy. I'm smiling. Always. I love it.
And last night [this morning] we painted one of thier bathroom ceilings. As her parents lay
This all started in the year 2000, as Blythe walked over to the neighbor's house, and the Nordbye's had just moved into their new house on Mt. Hood in Brightwood. Kate came up with the fabulous idea for us to paint a mural on the wall. As a surprise for her parents. We got out the watercolors, the brushes, put on our painter's hat and began our first masterpiece. The medium: plaster. The end result: amazing. In vibrant colors one bathroom wall became completely changed by two high school girls. And at the end of the day, as Kate's mom came back. She got mad. "What were you girls thinking!?!!"....A furious mother informed us that we were to scrub those walls. Kate and I cleaned and cleaned, the paint dripping down and smearing all over. We couldn't help laughing as we washed away our work. And then a few hours later, she comes back to us. Girls, actually, I've been thinking about it. I really do wish you'd paint the mural again. So we did! We spent hours on a new and improved masterpiece and added a quote suitable for the mural: "Twenty years from now, the things you will regret most are not those things that you have done, but those you have not." - Mark Twain. And so, now three years later the girls have struck again. This time, with the parents sleeping soundly on the other side of the house [I have no idea how that happened considering we made so much noise with the ladder in the garage and setting everything up to paint the ceiling!], we mischieviously painted away once again.