The week before Christmas (and after christmas)

So it has been a long time since my last post and I really have no excuse for it other than I always said to myself, I will do it tomorrow. Now see where that got me. Today I woke up at 1 PM because I stayed up late the night before. When I woke up I decided that I should write in my blog. So I think I am going to write a quick recap of my break.

After the lord of the rings marathon I went to the airport to pick up my sister. It was great to see her again. Then I went home with her for the break. I spent the next week running around buying presents for everyone, and figuring out what they wanted. Don’t you love the swarms of people in the store when you want to be in and out of there quickly? I finally finished my shopping on the 23rd. This meant that I didn’t have to go out on the 24th.

Also during the week before Christmas, my sister (Renee) was taking care of my other sister’s (Julie) baby, so I went over there to help her with that. Normally Connor is a good baby but this whole week he was very fussy. I don’t think that it helped that he was sick and teething at the same time. So anyway, I spent the day trying to entertain him and changing diapers.

Christmas Eve I spent at my grandma’s house where we had an excellent dinner and had a fun time opening presents. On Christmas morning I was awoken by my sister Rebecca, she was singing some sort of song trying to get me up. It was fun to have the whole family home for Christmas morning. A list of the attending: Myself, Mom and Dad, Rebecca, Eric(her husband), Julie and Andy(her husband) and Connor, Renee, and my grandparents. I don’t care about run on sentences.

Christmas morning was awesome, I didn’t really ask for anything other than a high backed office chair so other than that the things that I got were kind of a surprise. I got some awesome clothes and cool DVD’s to watch. Then at about 3 that afternoon, we all went over to my Aunt Lynne’s house to see my dad’s side of the family. This is always a big reunion. We all live around the Seattle area so we see each other quite often, but we are never all together. Anyway, my aunt’s and uncles gave me a very generous gift certificate to Fry’s electronics.

The day after Christmas was a day of rest and relaxation and Halo 2. Then on the 27th we woke up early and headed over to Lake Chelan (my favorite place in the world). We went to stay at my aunt barb’s house. She has a house in Seattle and one in Chelan. I of course brought my GPS so that I could hit up all of the geocaches in the area. My two little cousins were fun to play with and they really enjoyed going geocaching with me. Al in all it was a fun time to hang out and relax in the beautiful Lake Chelan area. I was only there for just over 24 hours because I had to drive my sister back for a prior engagement. Otherwise she couldn’t have come. But in those 24 hours I found 7 caches. I went up to the top of the Chelan butte and saw some of the most breath taking scenes of my life. You can see everything from there.
On the night of the 28th I went over to my brother-in-law house to play halo 2 all night on Xboxlive. Anyway I had a great time over there and I ended up spending the night there. The next day we played more halo 2 and watched the baby. That night I went home and hung out with my parents and listened to my police scanner. That brings me to today.

Anyway sorry that was so long and boring but I just wanted to write this morning…or I guess afternoon.

LOTR Marathon

So yesterday was the Lord of the Rings marathon that Pete put on. It was pretty cool. I was only able to stay for the first two movies, but it was still really fun. By the end there were about 10 people there. I left around 7 PM.

I then went back to UCU to pack my things and head to the airport to pick up my sister. She arrived about 9:30 and we headed back to our house. We got home and yucked it up till about 1 in the morning. I love being with my family!! Have a great break everyone!

Possessions

So today was the day that my stress disappeared. I finished my Chemistry final and I actually feel that I did pretty well on it. Now I just have to wait and see what my final grade will be. Enough of that, break has arrived. I feel like I am ringing in the New Year or something...

After my final, I came home and began to pack up my stuff so that I could move it all down to the crypt. While I was moving all of my stuff down there, I realized how much stuff it takes to live. But then I realized that all of these things I don't NEED to live, they are just accessories. That made me think about how fortunate I really am to have all of these possessions at my disposal.

After moving some of my things, I went down and watched the good, the bad, and the ugly. That is a pretty good movie. After the movie I took the bus to my sister's house to pick up my car so that I could head over to Sammamish. I picked up Alex and went to this event that my church was putting on called teriyaki Christmas. The food was really good. I am burnt out, so I think I will do some relaxin' the next few days!

Finals are almost over

In like 10 hours I will be all done with my first quarter of college. Pretty weird. Anyway, I can't wait for break. I will do lots of fun things with my family and I will get to see my sisters and yeah....I like run on sentences. I have a big Chemistery final which I am not ready for, but I think I am going to get up early and study for it. I should be getting to bed since my final is at 8:30 in the morning. Sorry about the boring blog....It will get more intresting as my stress level goes down and my free time increases.

My Nephew

Last night I ended up spending the night at my sister's house. I stayed there too late talking with my brother-in-law, so I just decided to crash there. I got up about 10 am to take care of Connor because my sister had to go to an appointment. That little guy is soooooo awesome. He is only like 3 months old but he is so funny and cute. He is always giggling and smiling and sometimes I even think that he is trying to talk.

So after that, I went back to UCU and hung out for the day and studied. Watched movies and talked with people. Anyway, I am tired and I don't want to write much more tonight...I have some thoughts that I would like to write down but I think I will save those for tomorrow.

Accomplishment

Today I was awoken by a call from my mother. She wanted me to get up and meet her at the animal hospital with my dog because she had gotten him an appointment there. (My dog has some type of infection is his nose, we think). So I got up and took him to the vet where they took forever to take us into an exam room. They looked at him for awhile, and told us that they really couldn't tell what was wrong unless they put him to sleep and took x-rays and did other tests. About half way through the appointment my mother had to go to a chiropractor appointment, leaving all of the medical decisions up to me. So after the doctor said all of her mombo jumbo, she quoted me a low end price, and a high end price. The low end was 400 dollars, and the high-end was 800 dollars.

So I asked her...What would you do if you found something in all of the x-rays and tests? She said oh, well we would give him some antibiotics and see if that clears it up. So then I asked, what would you do if you didn't find anything in all of those tests? And she said well we could do more tests and see if we could find something else, or we could give him some antibiotics anyway and see if he gets better. So I said, why don't you just give me the antibiotics and we will give him those and see if he gets better....She said ok I guess that would work. This sanario only cost 65 bucks. 50 for the appointment, and 15 for the pills.

So anyway...I don't like how they try to screw me over like that. Watch out!!!! So as soon as that was done I hopped in my car and went to the x-ray specialist and got my own teeth x-rayed, so that I could give them to my orthodontist. After that I went to big 5's shoe sale. I got 3 pairs of shoes. So now I have a total of 5 pairs of shoes. I think that is the most I have ever had at one time in my life. Scary. After shoe shopping I went to get my vehicle emissions test done. This was very weird because I drove up and they tested my gas cap like always, but then when it came time to test my car they just had me get out and turn off the car. Then like 15 seconds later they told me that my car passed and I could get back in and go. They never tested the emissions. Oh well, I got my paper that said my car had passed, I was happy.

After that I ran to meet up with my mom and one of her cousins from Vegas, and we had lunch at Aztecan in Bellevue. After lunch I went back to UCU and dropped off my stiff and went to a review session for my chemistry final. After the review session I went back to UCU and hung out till about 8 and then went to my sister's house for the evening. Sorry this post is so boring, I really didn't think of much today because I was so busy.

Sundays

So today was a fun day. I work up to go to the early service at Mars Hill. Don't you love waking up early on a Sunday morning? For some reason I am always am really happy when I get up early on Sundays to go to church. Anyway, I went to church with like a hundred people from UCU. Actually like 2 car loads, but anyway it was a great service. It was my first time going to Mars Hill, and it was a very enjoyable first time.

After church my parents came and picked me up and took me to burgermaster for lunch. Then we went to my house in Issaquah. I got home and took a wonderful long nap. Then I got up and helped my parents with all of their technical problems. Installed a new printer, fixed my mom's computer, showed my dad how to sync his palm pilot with his laptop....and much much more. They can't function technologically when I am absent.

After that I helped write the family Christmas letter. I had fun finding pictures for the letter, and write about what the members of my family did this year. I love reflecting back on things. I got bored at one point and changed my brother-in-law's head into a gorilla, for no other reason than because I had Photoshop on my computer. Then I e-mailed the picture to him and called him up to see what he wanted for Christmas because that reminded me that I hadn't gotten hum anything yet. Enough said here!

Reasons

I don't yet know what I am going to say in my blog yet. Usually I start out with some inkling of what I will talk about, but this time I think I will just write. I think that there is a reason; A reason for why I don't know what I will talk about yet. My brain is so dead from the 3 three hour math final I had today. It was tough, and I hope I do ok.

There are reasons for everything. Reasons for what you do and when you do it. It is kind of weird to think about that. Starting off simple; The reason you pull yourself out of bed 15 minutes earlier everyday is because you want to take a shower. I guess sometimes it is the consequences that make up our reasons. For example, if you don't take a shower then you will smell and feel dirty. So that gives us a reason to get out of bed 15 minutes earlier just to take a shower.

Lately I have been thinking about my motivations for doing what I do. Or you could call this my reasons for doing what I do. From the things I say to the things I do. Sometimes it is good to question your motives for doing things. Are you doing this for yourself? Are you doing this for another person? or are you doing this for God? I found that if I make myself consciously think about the things that I am doing, I do less selfish things, and more outgoing things. Not only that, but I don't sin as much. So next time you do something, think about why you are doing it.

Walking walking everywhere

I usually try and write at least one thing cool in my blog everyday, but today all I can say is that I did a lot of walking in the rain. While I did the walking, my mind the talking. I thought about lots of things. I am really tired, so I don't think I will write what I thought about, but instead I will write about thinking....

Don't you just love thinking? Thinking about life, the world, how you got where you were, what would have happened if you had done something different? I thought about those things today as I did my final presentation for engineering 100 Honors. I was looking at the other guys in the group that I wanted to be in, and I realized how much I wouldn't have fit in with that other group. Isn't it weird how God knows exactly where to place you? I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a big final tomorrow, but I didn't study tonight because I didn't want to....I will study in the morning. Night everyone!

The Man in Red Square

So today I was walking to class through red square, and I noticed this guy in the front of Kane hall. He appeared to be homeless, and he was feeding the pigeons and seagulls with a piece of bread. I was really intrigued by this for some reason, and I didn't know why. My class was in Bagley, so I still had a little ways to go. As I walked, I thought more and more about this man. I felt sorry for him, and I kinda wanted to talk to him. The man was all alone, and only the pigeons would give him the time of day, but not without him giving them something first.

As I arrived at my first class, I was still thinking about that man. All through class my mind kept drifting, and I would think of him again. So after class I went to my next class and I was still thinking about him, and his world. Then I realized that there must be a reason why I am thinking so much about him. Is God trying to tell me something? Maybe. So after my second class I went to the computer lab and finished an assignment. As I left the computer lab, I walked through red square again, and I heard this really obnoxious sound. Repeatedly, over and over again I heard it. I looked up and I saw the same man making that sound with the balloon. You know that sound that is made when you drag your fingers across a balloon? That is what he was doing. I realized that this man is begging for attention.

I had a little time before my next class, so I went up and talked with him. He did in fact have a story. He began to tell me about his life, and what had happened to him recently. His story was basically that he has been living in various places for awhile, and he had just learned that his son had been killed in Iraq. He began telling me about his son, and then he quickly and abruptly stopped. He asked me if I had to be anywhere soon. I said, no my classes can wait. We talked about various thinks for about 20 more minutes. When I we were saying goodbye, he said that it was really nice to talk to somebody. He thanked me, and I left. I really didn't get to share anything about myself with this man, but I think that all he wanted was for someone to listen to him.

In the sort time that we talked, I learned a lot about myself from this man. I don't know if I will ever see this guy again, but if I do I will be sure and talk to him again. I don't think I will ever froget this man.

Stress and Finals

Today I had a lot due, and it was really stressful because I not only were things due today, but there is more due tomorrow and then a final on Saturday. So last night, I was working on homework until late, and at like 1 in the morning I was so fed up I just wanted to get away, go outside or just do something. I ended up going swinging in the rain. Anyway, all this to say that no matter how much stress you are under, you will never be given more than you can handle. While I was swinging, I was thinking of all the things I still had to do, but then my mind wandered on to greater things, The Bible and God. Suddenly I was relaxed when I remembered that God will never give you more than you can handle. I think I am learning a lot more lately with finals coming up, things that you don’t learn by studying. God is teaching me in many different ways and I am excited to see what is in store next in my life.

P.S. Had an awesome Halo tournament tonight with Aaron, Jacob, David, and Derek.

Today was normal and slow, but filled with lots of things to do. I went to math class and then came back home and worked on my thermoelectric paper and then went down and had some lunch. After lunch I went to chemistry and then to Mary gates hall to once again work on my thermoelectric paper, but this time with members of my group. After this I went to my seminar and listened to a guy speak about the electrical engineering department. That was interesting because that is what I am interested in...lol, that is great statement I just wrote, but I will leave it there just for fun.

When I got out of seminar, it was pouring down rain, so I took the bus home to avoid the rain. When I got home Christi and I had made plans to watch some episodes of the first season of 24, so we carried out our plans. Then was dinner, but as soon as dinner was over, Christi came back for more...so we went down to Mark's room and watched it down there. After that I had to get started on my math homework so I went back upstairs and got some of it done....but I really didn't understand it, so I gave up. I will learn it later.

After finishing my math, I went upstairs and listened to my police scanner and checked my e-mail. Then I got bored and didn’t want to go to bed and I was talking to Becky and we decided to go swinging at 1 AM in the pouring rain. It was fun and we talked a lot. Going to bed now….oh yeah….and I think that from now on I will talk more about my thoughts like Robb suggested, maybe do a half and half thing. I kind of wanted this journal to remind me of the experiences that I have had, and thoughts are part of experiences…I don’t even know if I am making sense at 2:30 in the morning. Who cares.

I am sick of thinking of titles

Today I wanted to get up early, but I ended up resetting my alarm and sleeping later. Oh well, sleep just is too tempting. Went to all of my classes today which is good, and I actually learned something from each of them. In my thermoelectric lab, I learned that my final paper is due on Wednesday instead of Friday which I though earlier...but oh well, I will finish it in due time.

After classes I came home eager to do home work, but ended up watching whose line is it anyway with Aaron and Allan. Then at 5:15 there were ordered over at the girls house, so we all went over there, and then I came back to get dressed up for dinner. Put on some nice clothes because we were having our Christmas dinner. I kind of like dressing up so I think I will do it more often.

After dinner we had worship and Bible study with everyone, which was fun, and Lauren talked about a very intriguing topic. After that we had our business meeting which was shorter than expected, and then I washed dishes because Andrew asked me to take Monday night this week because he had a concert tonight. After doing the dishes, I broke out my Xbox and set it up downstairs so that we can play 8 player Halo downstairs. Yeah, for two Xbox’s.

Then I went next door and showed Catherine how to upload pictures to her UW account so that she could put some pictures on her blog. Then I went back over to the guy's house and watched a game of Halo and then came upstairs to do this and go to bed. As I write this I am listening to my police scanner. Right now I am listening to a hit and run in south Seattle. Goodnight!

Emergency Personnel

Today started with my roommate’s alarm of going off. It ended up going off about 6 times before he got up because he kept hitting the snooze button. My roommate shall remain nameless. It's all good, because I really don't care that much and it was like 10 in the morning when it first went off. Anyway, my day was pretty relaxing. I got up and took a shower and then checked my e-mail and did various things on my computer until it was time for lunch. Ate lunch over at the girl’s and then came back and studied until about 3:30.

I was interrupted twice during my studding because of emergency personnel outside of my window. The first time there was a drug bust right outside of my window on the street, so I whipped out my police scanner and listened to the whole thing. After it was over I kept listening to the scanner, which was a mistake. I was listening to the Seattle Fire Department when I heard a call for an address that was again right by UCU. This time it was about a half block away. 7 fire engines, 2 fire battalions, 2 aid units, and like 4 other miscellaneous units were called out to a fire. I grabbed my scanner and went out side to the location of the address, and sure enough, it smelled like smoke and I was the first one there. Then I heard all of the sirens. It was fun being the first one there....everyone was out of the house when I got there, and it turned out not to be such a big deal after all. I guess what happed is that the inside walls of the chimney caught fire and started the siding of the house on fire. By the time the fire department got there, the home owner had already put it out. so they canceled about 10 of the units and the other five kept coming...The whole ordeal took about three hours, but I left like 10 minutes after I got there, I just kept listening to it on my scanner.

I went and hung out in Jacob's room for awhile and talked about guy stuff and laughed a lot. At about 4:30 I went with Ross and Jacob down to the IMA to work out. It was fun, and I felt good afterwards. Then I came back and took a quick shower and headed over to UPC with Pettis for their evening service. After the service I came home and watched the last little part of and all new Simpson’s. Then I watched 2 episodes of CSI season 2 on DVD with Allen and Katie. I really like the season two episodes of CSI, you should check them out.

After watching CSI I went over to get a drink and ended up talking to Katie, Christi, both Brian's and Linnell for about a half hour before finally heading off to bed.

Lazy day

Don’t you just love sleeping in late on a rainy Saturday morning? I didn’t wake up until noon, but then again I didn’t go to bed until 3 am because of a certain reason which I will not discuss here. After crawling out of bed, I took a long hot shower and tried to get ready for the day. At about 1:30 I went to the Seattle Goodwill with Joel, Robb, Nate, and Mark. We got our white elephant gifts there for that night’s Christmas party. I got a really really cool fork that automatically released the item that it was holding. It was really cool.

After the good will I came back to UCU and wrapped my gift. Then I got tired and took a nap until about 5 PM. Then I got dressed up to go to the party which was held at Katie’s house in Bellevue. It was a great party. We had a good dinner, and then we exchanged gifts. I ended up getting an old Intel Pentium processor. Not the coolest gift, but there was other things like Squirt Guns, stadium chairs, a five dollar bill, and live goldfish. After the gift exchange I played spoons with Becky, Heather, Holly, Aaron Pettis, and Tim. We learned that we should not use plastic spoons in this game. We ended the game with Becky and Holly fighting for a spoon when it snapped and cut Holly’s thumb.

After spoons I went and watched the best part of Home Alone (the part when the robbers come) and then said my goodbye’s and left at 11 with Andrew and Aaron Khuns.

Work and Fun

I started the day out by waking up at 6:30 to study for my Chemistry exam. Went to math, and then came back and studied for another hour, and then ate lunch and headed to my midterm. Chemistry midterms with Professor Zoller are hard, frantic, and stressful. He makes the exam so that it is impossible for anyone to finish it, so that no one can leave early. This makes you have to do as many problems as possible in the 50 minute time period so that you score high on the curve. Anyway, I feel that I did pretty well; I just can't wait to get my score back to see how I actually did.

After my exam I went to my project lab for engineering 100 and worked on my presentation that I had to give at 5:30 PM. Finished my presentation and then headed over to the UW Health Sciences Building. I went to where they film UWTV because I was giving my presentation on Thermoelectrics to a group of Japanese professors and students. We used a live video feed to talk with them in Japan, and then they were able to ask questions to us about our research findings. It was really cool and weird to be talking to someone in Japan over live video.

After that was over, I went back to UCU and messed around for awhile until about 10 and then I started working on a special project. I can't talk about this project now because there are people reading this that I can't discuss this topic with. I have written the story of tonight down in a word document that I have on my hard drive. In exactly 1 year, I will post the story in this exact location. You think that I will forget to post this in a year...? I will not because I have two different computers that will remind me of my task.

Long day...

Today was an extremely long day. I left the house at 9 am and didn't get back until 6:30 pm. Quick summary of my day. Math, Fig Class, Chemistry 142, Chem. 142 Lab, and the Chemistry review for the exam that I have tomorrow. Got back home finally and had some good dinner, and then went to Starbucks because they were giving out free holiday drinks. I went with Derek, Ross, Aaron P, Robb, Christi, Jordan and his girlfriend. Eggnog lattés are good! Came back and finished some Math homework, the studied for my midterm till now. Nothing really interesting really happened today.

Liquid Nitrogen is fun stuff!!!!

So today was a pretty normal day for me. Went to class and went through the normal routine. Then came my Engineering 100 honors class. It was great, I love this class. I work in a group of 5 people including myself trying to develop a thermoelectric device. So far we have made 3 different materials and now we are constructing different devices to find out which one will generate the most power. So anyway, today I was working with liquid nitrogen and dry ice because we have to create a temperature gradient in order for the device to output electricity. So on one side it is hot and on the other it is cold. (This is where the liquid nitrogen comes in) So I have been working with liquid nitrogen for about two weeks now, and I have never done anything like this until now.

I was holding the beaker with my sweatshirt sleeve in-between my hand and the beaker so that when I was holding the beaker, my hand would not freeze off. What's that you say? Should have used gloves? Well, the problem with gloves is that the plastic will freeze on your gloves thus holding cold on your finger longer than if the nitrogen were to just bounce off of your finger. So I was pouring the liquid nitrogen from the container into a small beaker and the beaker filled up faster than I expected and it spilled onto my sweatshirt. This made my sweatshirt go instantly stiff and transfer the 73 degree Kelvin (-321 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature to my finger. I set down the beaker and pulled my hand out, but it was too late. I had given myself frostbite...I have no feeling in the tip of my right index finger. It hasn't turned black yet, so I don't think it will. I hope it will come back soon, but we will have to see.

The rest of my day? Came home ate dinner and then went to half price books with Ashley, Jacob, Robb, and Katherine to look for something interesting to read and maybe find a white elephant gift for this weekend. Came back home and worked on homework till now. I got distracted from my homework earlier tonight and found a lot of people that I knew on thefacebook.com. You should check it out. Now back to more homework and studying.

Stressed out!

I enjoyed my day today as much as I could. It was long. Got up and went to my Math 124 TA section where I worked on an old final so that I can prepare for my final which is coming up in less than two weeks. Came back home and studied a little and had devotions so that I could relax a little and actually enjoy part of my day. Had lunch and went to Chemistry.

Came home and tried to do some chemistry homework for about 2 hours, but got nowhere. Went to my seminar class and got lectured about how the world's fossil fuel's will run out in the near future and we engineers need to find a new source of renewable energy. So I think that you will be surprised to her this... (As I was). The next major source of generating power in the US and mostly in China will be old growth forests. Sounds bad, but China already has some of these plants that generate energy from the debris that line the forest floor. They don't cut down trees, they just collect all of the dead, dry, rotting stuff on the ground and use that to create energy....I know, it sounds crazy! It also has another benefit; it will help to prevent forest fires. Who knows what will happen next in the world. Oh yeah, we also talked about the next form of transportation....Top secret....actually, I am just too tired to write about it here and now. Sometime later.

After my seminar I went to a chemistry review session where I reviewed what will be on the Chemistry midterm which I will have on Friday. Then I went straight from there to Mary Gates Hall to get my chemistry homework done. I got most of in done within 2 hours and then it was time for C.L.U.E., So I stayed and got a couple questions of mine answered.

Came home and ate some dinner and by now it was ten O'clock. And at ten some people were downstairs just starting Spiderman 2, so I decided to relax and take it easy for awhile. Watched the whole movie through for a second time and now I am going to hit the sack and hope that my headache goes away.