oh Sandy

Lately it seems like I haven't been able to concentrate long enough to get a coherent post out. But this will work out... says me for the fifth time. Sigh.

I missed my good friend Sandy on her visit to the east coast. Looks like she had a good time with my family... 

Almost forgot how much greener New Jersey is.

Whoops.

Part of me is sad that I missed out on such an exciting event, but at the same time, I have found some extremely crunchy leaves here the past couple of days, and I don't know that I'd want to give that up. Then again, no school for a couple of days would be nice, and it probably would be good for me to not have power because then I'd be forced to go to bed earlier. Also, I wouldn't mind having Halloween postponed because I still don't have a costume. I think I'm going to go to DI (it's similar to salvation army) this afternoon and find something there. Man, in some ways I'm completely unmotivated. 

Day before last I was able to register for classes for next semester... Can't say that it worked out quite as well as I expected it to. I'm on a waitlist of 33 people for a class of 25, so that looks promising... And then some of the classes that I was planning on taking aren't even offered this semester, so my schedule looks a little bit different than I was planning for it to look. On the bright side though, I managed to avoid afternoon classes (other than my o chem lab, for which I'm on a waitlist of 55 people for). So now all I have to do is sit back and hope that everybody -- and then some -- drops the class sessions I want to take.

I haven't made any origami lately, or read, or practiced organ... and somehow I still need to go to bed earlier than I am. I mentioned the step study that I'm in before. Last week I went in so that they could update my pedometer, and found out that I was not actually reaching the 15000 steps I was supposed to, so now I have to figure out how to wander around more to reach that. It feels so pointless, trying to take the most ineffective paths to where I want to go, just so that I can take more steps. Maybe I wills start running so I don't have to feel obligated to take the longest path to wherever I want to go. 

a beginning and an end

This week started out overcast and dark. Monday I had an eight o'clock class, and when I left it was the awkward time in the morning when it's not dark any more, but it's not exactly light either. It reminded me of all the times waking up early for a flight: when you leave the house it's dark but by the time you get to the airport it's sunrise and you're tired -- but in a weird sort of way since you've been up for two hours already. I remember one time we had a flight at eight in the morning so we were at the airport around 6:30. And we threw a diaper around. Good fun actually. I'd recommend doing it when you're not fully awake though... it's more enjoyable that way. Anyway, the campus was all hushed and subdued because it was too early to exert energy to talk and be social. But it was in a good type of way -- there's that expectation of really good things to come.

And then the rest of the week happened.

And now Saturday! I went to the temple which took a lot longer than I expected so I didn't end up having time to take my test for Book of Mormon, so I'm going to have to pay the $5 late fee to take it Monday. Oh well.... And then I went home, and baked! I made pumpkin bread/muffins/cookies, banana bread/muffins, and apple pie! And also mashed potatoes. (Those are all the recipes I used, in case you're wondering. Everything tastes really good. Except for I don't know about the pie yet.) The pie is really impressive actually. It better taste good. It has a caramel sauce on top, and I didn't even realize that was what it was until I was making it and it clicked that it was caramel! Caramel in and of itself is pretty good. But homemade caramel... man, it's delicious, especially when it's still all warm and soft. I would post pictures but I don't know where my SD card went... I thought I just left it in my laptop, but it's not here, and it's not in my camera either. Hopefully it'll show up.

my fears

There is always some part of me that is afraid: afraid that my actions right now aren't good enough and that I'll regret them later. It's not that I'm making obviously poor choices; it's more subtle than that, but there's always the part of me that tells me that I can be better than I am, and that I should be trying harder to be that person. I'm afraid that I'm not living my life in the best way possible, I'm afraid that one day I'll look back and think about who I could have become but didn't. Part of me is afraid that I'm not good enough now to get into my dream school, MIT, for grad school, and then another part of me, perhaps a larger part, is afraid that when the time comes that that won't be what I want anymore. It scares me how little control I have over my life. I want to take my life by the horns, but yet I'm forced to live life one day at a time, just like everybody else.

And perhaps that's what makes life difficult: the fact that we do have to go by life one day at a time. It's easy to make big plans, but actually following through on those plans... that's difficult. It happens to me all the time with homework, especially the homework with a due date far in the future (i.e. summer homework... which I didn't have this summer!). I'll make big plans to do it, and I'll even start it, but then I'll feel overwhelmed, and I'll give up, or at least for that day. But in order to be successful you have to be persistent  I read this book over the summer, and I would highly recommend it. It's called The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Everyday Lives, and like the title might imply, it's about randomness. The book talked a lot about how just mere talent does not guarantee success: authors we now praise often only became renown after many attempts at having their books published, and popular movies likely have an equally good counterpart movie that was never produced because the idea was shot down.

Sometimes I feel like I'm going upstream, and all of the fish
are giving me really strange looks

Although I certainly have my share of imperfections, I can't let my fears rule my life. I need to decide now that I am going to act. Not tomorrow, today. I will change today. I will stop wasting time, I will stop going to bed too late (actually can't do that today... already past midnight. Whoops. But oh hey that means I can go to bed earlier today!), I will try harder to have a social life. I will be better, and I will start today.

one of those days

Make sure you're seeing the whole picture --
with everything important in it

You know those days that seem to drag on forever and you desperately want them to be over -- even though that means that you'll have to face whatever dreadful thing the next day presents? One of those days where you have so much to do, and you don't know how you're going to get everything done? The kind of day where when someone smiles in passing at you you just can't muster the strength to reciprocate the smile? That's what I think what living in the moment is. Or, at least, one type of living in the moment. And, it happens to me much more than I would like. Today for example.

Today was one of those days. I left my apartment at 8:20 this morning and didn't get back until 8:30 tonight. Between classes, studying for my stats test, taking my stats test, doing homework, working on research stuff, this day has way too long. I still haven't done everything I should have, such as studying for my physics test, printing out my writing paper (and editing it...), buying my sister a birthday present (her birthday is tomorrow. whoops.), practicing organ, and probably other things too that I can't remember. Sometimes, the here and now feels overwhelming.

Unless I'm disciplined, I tend to focus on
what isn't as important in the long term

I consider myself a very future-oriented person. Most everything I do is because I'm expecting something good will come out of it... eventually. But yet, it seems like every day I have a list of things I need to do, and I have no sort of plan of how to do them. And generally, everything on that list focuses on what I need to do right then. Study for my test this week, pass off organ exercises that are due, finish physics homework and hand it in, make sure I reach five hours of work for my research job... Now that I'm in the midst of the semester, the farthest in the future I can seem to focus on (and act upon, not just think about) is a couple of days in the future. I might do my chemE homework a couple days early, or I might start studying for a big test the week before, but that's it.

Perhaps I need to refocus, and see how my goals and interests align with what I'm currently doing. Because really, focus makes the difference between the desired result, and something different all together.

I appreciate life

I've been thinking the difference that exists between when you say you enjoy something and when you truly appreciate it. I'm sure this doesn't exactly follow dictionary definitions of the words, but I think that enjoyment involves simple pleasure, whereas appreciation entails the effort and hard work that it takes to come to understand something thoroughly. For example, I would say that before I read Walter Lewin's book I enjoyed rainbows, but know I can say that I appreciate rainbows because I know how they work (although, granted, not perfectly).

It's this way with a lot of things in life. You can enjoy a good meal, but until you are faced with having to make it yourself (i.e. until college) you can't truly appreciate it. You can enjoy good weather, but unless you've lived somewhere where there's crappy weather all the time, you can't completely appreciate the gorgeous, crisp, fall days. The same goes for life: you can appreciate it, but unless you're pushed to your limits and face trials and challenges you can't fully appreciate life. So, some food for thought: are there some aspects of life which you are passively enjoying instead of actively appreciating?

This has nothing to do with anything...

I know I tend to take a lot of things for granted, although coming here to college has helped me see how much I have. I appreciate food easily ten times as much as I did in high school, because now I realize how difficult it is to come by (free food or homemade food). Letters are also really important, and I have to say getting a letter in the mail makes my day, every time. I appreciate transportation now that I'm walking everywhere (except for when I don't mooch off of my sister's fiance...). Man, it was nice having a car this past summer. Also, family, and everything that comes from living at home. Being super far away has made me appreciate how nice it was to have my laundry done, and to have little brothers and sisters bug me while I was doing homework -- or do fun things with like watch movies, or go to random dams in the middle of... somewhere, I think (that did happen). I also appreciate church a lot more since I'm putting forth more effort to make sure I'm living my life as I should be.

Am I doing perfectly? Certainly not. I can't say that I appreciate modern art. Not in the least bit. I just can't understand what the point is, what the artist is trying to say. And same goes for a lot of literature, film, architecture... and I don't think I can say that I appreciate the humanities. The mountains here? I've climbed Timpanogos, but I'm not going to count that, so I don't think I can say that I appreciate the mountains either, since I haven't experienced the cruel, harsh reality that climbing a mountain presents. The list goes on too. But am I going to stop trying to gain a greater understanding of everything that surrounds me? No. Am I going to live my life passively, enjoying the good parts that come my way? No! If there's one thing that I don't want to be, it's passive. Although I undoubtedly have not had the sorest trials in life, I have been challenged, and I have put forth a lot of effort to come to understand the life that surrounds me, so I think it would be fair to say that, on some level, I appreciate life.

Edit: I just watched Walter Lewin's lecture on rainbows and I think it's interesting to note that he makes a similar differentiation: at the beginning of the lecture he tells the class that they have looked at rainbows, but have not yet seen them.

why my life is great

I'm not going to lie, this week has been pretty fantastic, albeit not that great for the tests which I have next week...

My writing paper has been turned in! I think I worked more for that paper than for any other (except maybe a research paper), so I fully expect that my professor will post it as a sample paper with my sister's next semester. The bad news: this paper is being expanded. So, I will have to put up with this paper a bit longer. But alas.

This morning when I left to go to campus, I saw a hot air balloon! It was quite awesome. Unfortunately it wasn't close enough to take a good picture though.

When I was going back from campus this evening, I saw a car with a New Jersey license plate! I don't know who owns that car, but he or she is my best friend I tell you.

Best friends. Seriously.

In my organ class we have to pick a repertoire piece (i.e. not a hymn) to learn by ourselves, and I went crazy and chose Bach's Fugue in G. It has a pretty difficult pedal piece, and combined with the other left and right hand... well it's a mess right now. But it's upbeat and fairly repetitive so hopefully it won't be unmanageable. I'm really excited to learn it though.

That's right. Playing three parts at once. 

As part of the honors program they're starting something new: honors societies, each one focused on different great work experiences such as science, service, art, literature, etc. They had a meeting for it on Wednesday, and there weren't a lot of people there so I'm kinda like a leader person now! But I have many, many ideas for this club. Like, my group could potentially fire me for over zealousness. I couldn't understand that though, because how can you not be excited about science? Hopefully now I will have people to attend lectures with, or verify that the Fibonacci numbers are real with.

Speaking of lectures, I went to one yesterday that was really, really interesting. It was on origami, and because of it I can now fully appreciate that which I used to only enjoy. Origami is useful: you can solve up to quartic equations just with two folds, as incredible as that sounds. And, you can trisect an angle! While you may not find that so, I think that that's astounding. I took a class at governor's school the summer before last which focused on rulers and compasses. And by the end of the course I had accepted that it was impossible to trisect an angle--or create a 7-gon. Yet, you can do both of those without too much trouble with origami. The amount of math that goes into something like the piece below is simply incredible, and makes me appreciate origami that much more because I now understand how complex it is.

Made out of one piece of paper. For more see langorigami.com

wonderful weekend

This weekend has been really short. But wonderful, all the same.

First, let me explain my research position. I work in a wildlands fire research lab, and up to this point I have mainly been analyzing IR data which certainly has given me new experience with spreadsheets and so forth, but not terribly exciting. This Friday, I finally did something. The main purpose of the lab is to burn stuff to create models to hopefully be able to better model fire movement for firefighters. So, on Friday we were doing a burn, and I got to help. First, we had to do all the grunt work: massing the samples, measuring length, width and thickness of leaves, counting how many leaves each sample had, taking pictures, obtaining a moisture content figure, and so forth. And then we got to burn them! It was really fun being able to to help out with the burn, and watching all of the clumps (small branches of leaves) burn was really, really enjoyable. If you're interested, you can find a video with a brief overview of the lab here. 

For those of you who have not been involved in scientific research before, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There are a lot of aspects of research which are really tedious and less enjoyable, and only moments, such as during the burn, when the air is literally crackling with excitement. Walter Lewin talked about in his book how his team would prepare for a year or so before a balloon launch just so that they could get everything right (looking at x-ray astronomy where data can only be obtained from high in the atmosphere). But it's worth it, because when everything clicks, it's that much more rewarding. 

Not to change the subject, but I have an exciting announcement. I bought new shoes! 

Quality shoes here: no arch support, no treads left,
and places that will be holes soon enough...

Quality shoes here (not sarcastic now...)

Ever since I got to college I have been walking a lot. Since I don't have a bike or a bus pass, I've been walking too and from campus everyday, and from class to class. And, I kinda like it too. It gives me plenty of time to think everything over (and then over think things...) and allows me to (somewhat) plan my day out in my head. Also, I'm participating in a women's step study, so I have to reach a certain number of steps everyday (1500), and I get reimbursed about $100 at the end of it. I don't know how accurate the pedometer is, but it says that I walk 7-9 miles a day, and that's just how much I walk in the normal course of things. So that means that in the five or so weeks I've worn my old shoes here, they've gone at least 175 miles with me, not accounting for weekends, etc. That's kinda crazy. I guess I don't have to be too worried about a freshman fifteen...

Also, general conference was this weekend! As you may or may not know, I'm a Mormon, and our church holds a general meeting (which you can watch via broadcast. You can also access sessions or specific talks here) every six months. They announced this meeting that they changed the minimum age for which young women and young men can serve a mission: now guys can go at 18 while girls can go at 19. I've never really seriously thought about going on a mission, but now since it would be right in between my freshman and sophomore years of college (so much more convenient than after graduating), I'm considering going. So we'll see, perhaps that's what I need to do at this point in my life.

I made all of the origami things you see below during conference... As you can see, some of them didn't work out (aka all the ones to the left). And I was going to make some kind of analogy about how you have to try things even though everything doesn't always end up the way you want it (or sometimes you're not ready to handle certain situations yet), but I think... I'll save that spiel for another day. If you want links to learn how to make anything pictured below, let me know. 

I wish I had pretty origami paper... although perhaps
that would be bad, because then I would
definitely make origami stuff ALL. THE. TIME. 

it's October

It's funny, I come here, and suddenly I don't know what to say when people ask me what I like to do in my spare time. I guess it's a little bit less true now, since I've had some time to get in the flow of things, but right when I got here I was tongue tied whenever anyone asked me what I like to do for fun. All the things I did in high school such as mock trial, band, quiz bowl, oompah band in German Folk Club, Interact, marching band... I don't do them any more. And even less structured activities such as baking or playing with my little brothers or just sitting down at the piano and having fun with a piece... I can't exactly do  those things any more. Or rather, now they take effort.

I don't want it to sound like I'm having an identity crisis... I'm not. I myself know who I am, and I know where I want to be, and more or less how I want to get there. It's just... I don't know how to define myself to other people any more. I don't really feel like an engineer yet; in fact, at this point, I probably would classify myself as more of a scientist. And I'm not just a math/science person. I really enjoy music, reading, meeting new people, and learning in general.

My AP bio teacher in high school said that one characteristic people generally don't list when asked to describe themselves is happy. I am most certainly happy. There are always stressful moments, or days, or times when the seemingly only solution is crying, and I have experienced those feelings -- quite a bit more than usual -- here in college. But, whenever I'm feeling down, or stressed out, or overwhelmed, something good happens, or I lift my head up and see something really amazing. Maybe I'll understand the physics homework right away, or practicing organ will really calm me down and put somethings in perspective. Maybe someone will smile at me, I'll find a rainbow and I'll know how it works, or I'll see someone I know on campus.

One day as I was heading from writing to orgo, I had my head down, and was probably stressed, thinking about how I was going to accomplish all that had to be done that day, but I wasn't exactly upset. And then someone asked me if I was okay. While everything was fine, it was reassuring to know that there are people -- even complete strangers -- who are looking out for me. My Book of Mormon teacher told us last week that "it's almost October." It's almost that time where people start to get really stressed out, and life in general gets crazy - if it wasn't already. He told us about one of his students who had to leave halfway through the semester; his roommate had committed suicide, and he hadn't noticed because he was too caught up in his bubble.

As attractive as your bubble might be, get out of it. 

I don't know about everyone else, but when I have a lot to do and I feel that I can't afford to be unfocused, I withdraw into my own personal sphere, and it's really hard to penetrate it. I was doing homework over at friend's apartment the other day, and his roommate kept talking to me, and while I heard every single word he said, I can't say that I really listened. Although that might be good for my homework, I know that there are other things other than grades that are really important too, and perhaps even more so. So far this semester I have been trying really hard to keep myself aware of everything that is outside of my bubble. There are children out there. There are people that need my friendship. There are worthwhile ways to spend my time that don't always involve doing homework or studying. I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's October already. Watch that you don't get too caught up in your bubble.

oh glorious day

I just want to start off by saying that this week (so far) has been way less stressful than I was expecting it to be. I took two tests today, and I got a brownie after the first one! Also my organic chemistry test was... easier than my Book of Mormon test! I might actually have to start transferring some of the effort I spend in organic chemistry to other classes (such as everything other than organic chemistry basically...).

I don't really have anything else to say, so I will post some pictures from France!

Eiffel tower at night = gorgeous

Creeper picture! Thus, no head. It's funny,
you won't really find people wearing shorts in France...

I kinda really, really want to play a  real pipe organ.
 Especially one like this.