bassoon_chica

AMAs

2009-11-23T04:23:22Z

I just thought I'd get on here to express my great displeasure that Taylor Swift won the freaking Artist of the Year award at the AMAs. I would have rather seen a posthumous award go to Michael Jackson (and I think posthumous awards are awkward and overrated as all get out, especially with what's-his-name Jackson accepting the award) over Taylor Swift. She's cute and perky and perfect and all, and that's exactly why it pissed me off to see her win. Her reaction was about as 'oh, golly gee, look at that, wouldya?' and unsurprised as I've ever seen. Her acceptance/thank you speech? Why don't you just read the ingredient list off a box of Cheerios. Seriously.

Thanks for the rant time, LJ followers. I can go to sleep calmly and dream like a normal person...

bassoon_chica @ 2009-10-19T20:04:00

2009-10-20T00:05:07Z

I ran my first half marathon on Sunday. I am still sore today. I look forward to repeating this entire (training, racing, pain) experience in early May :-)

bassoon_chica @ 2009-09-25T20:09:00

2009-09-26T00:10:59Z

Today my car celebrated 60,000 miles, ~5,000 of those with me. I've had the car since the beginning of May....oh my.

For its 60K birthday, I'm getting it an oil change on Monday at Bob ROHRman Honda. They have the cheesiest commercials, but it's the closest Honda dealer in a 30 mile radius.

The catsup's out of the bag....

2009-09-06T19:01:19Z

This morning, I decided to get my grocery shopping out of the way early, so I to the store after church. I wanted to get out the door for my run before the day started to get too warm and sunny, so I was in a little bit of a hurry to get everything put away in the fridge. At some point, I opened the fridge door and out fell the ketchup. Mind you, it was in the door, not just sitting on a shelf in the fridge. When the **plastic** bottle fell onto my kitchen floor, the corner of the bottle disappeared. I didn't clean it up with the ketchup and I didn't see it anywhere. I'm not sure what happened to it, or how a plastic bottle manages to shatter. I am pissed that I have chicken patties and now, no ketchup to put on them. Seriously...shattered plastic ketchup bottle. I think I have bad luck with food :-\

Grad school, eh?

2009-08-29T00:46:28Z

So I've managed to successfully make it through my first week of grad school classes at Purdue. My apartment, while lovely from the outside and in a rather convenient location, has some issues with the rain (which it's been doing quite a bit of lately). Luckily, I'm in class or at the lab most of the time, so I don't notice the rainwater oozing in through the leaky kitchen window. Unfortunately, all that work in the lab doesn't earn me a paycheck until the middle or end of September. This is not helping the beleaguered state of my checking account. Comcast wants me to give them money; I have no problem with this because they give me internet (aka, all my friends) and cable. They also want me to pay them for a modem I am not renting. I spent 15 minutes with a very pleasant gentleman on the phone trying to get this corrected. I am not optimistic.

In other news, I'm bored (it's only the first week of class!) and I'm lonely (I haven't gotten my cat yet). This means that anyone wanting to visit a.)Indy b.)Chicago or c.)see a Big 10 football/basketball/etc. game or d.)ME! should stop on by. I have a really comfy futon, and a balcony (and soon a friendly cat :-P) I'm also tired of cooking for one, so if you came, you'd have all the food you could possibly eat. Seriously.

If you can't visit because you're, oh, in school or halfway across the world or something, I'll gladly give you my address so I can receive (and then send you) MAIL. It's depressing to come home to an empty apartment, but it really sucks when your mailbox is empty too :-\

Good luck to all with the coming school year...when things get shitty for me, I think I'll start learning how to cook French food. I heard that Julia Child's French cooking book requires a truckload (literally!) of butter...

bassoon_chica @ 2009-07-08T22:09:00

2009-07-09T02:13:38Z

Work, such as it is,is frustrating. This is week 6, and my mentor has been gone for almost 4 weeks. I'm tired of staring at orange squares, yellow lines, pink blobs, and tiny bits of a tiny compressor. If nothing else, I've learned that I do not want to do hard core compressor CFD work for the rest of my working adult life. I'd much rather run, take naps, and make/eat brownies. I did two of those three things this evening, and I am rather happy now :-)

bassoon_chica @ 2009-06-30T18:45:00

2009-06-30T22:48:09Z

I haven't updated for a while, and while I don't have anything, really, to blog about, I thought I'd just update. It may be due to the fact that I'm trying to wear off a margarita buzz so I can go running/lift at the Strongsville rec center...

Actually, I do have a reason to post:

I NEED YOUR HELP, GENTLE READERS.

I need you to scour any and all yard/garage sales you happen to see. I'm trying to find dishes, silverware, and living room furniture. If your parents have extras, convince them to sell it to a poor grad student. The alternative is that I will have a ghetto apartment, and you'll have to bring your own chair when you visit!

woo for summer :-)

My first AAA experience...

2009-06-15T02:30:56Z

So on my way back to Strongsville from Cuyahoga Falls this evening, I hear a 'thumpa-thumpa-thumpa' noise that gets faster as I go faster. My first thought is 'crap' and then 'maybe it's just a rock!' so I pull into an apartment complex and check my tires. Everything looks ok, but the 'thumpa-thumpa' noise continues. I start freaking out a wee little bit and call home while proceeding to pull into the parking lot of a strip mall. Checking my tires this time, I find a rather large screw in one of my tires. Lovely.

I drive to the BP across the street, but it has no service station. Since I can't plug a screw hole with beef jerky, I called AAA and was informed that a truck would be there in an hour. So Thomas comes down to the BP and hangs out with me while I'm waiting. When the sketchy tow truck gets there (from Akron), I'm informed that they can't fix my tire. They can't check tire pressure. I'm not sure if the truck driver even knew if he could put air in a tire. But he could change it, so he did that.

I then proceeded to drive back to Strongsville going no faster than 45. For the first 20 minutes of the trip, I was convinced I forgot to put the cap back on the tire stem. Then I was worried for a while about the spare going flat. But now I'm home sweet home and will have to fix it tomorrow.

Oh driving...I love my car :-)

bassoon_chica @ 2009-05-25T14:56:00

2009-05-25T18:59:02Z

So...I graduated from ONU yesterday :-D

I also moved all of my crap home last night, unloaded almost all of it, screwed up my back, won my age group in a 5K this morning, finished unloading my car, and slept for 2 hours.

What did YOU do today??!?

The end is near!

2009-05-12T20:06:49Z

I gave my Honors Program capstone presentation today. I started my interviews for the project approximately two weeks ago. I wrote my entire report and put together a 10 minute presentation in one night. The only time I ran though my presentation was as I was giving it for the first time.

Honors Program Students (pl. noun) - Those who excel at procrastinating and yet still manage to get their work done and pass with flying colors.

We're just better at procrastinating than you. No seriously. Where else is there a group of students on campus who have waited until the night before or two nights before to work on their capstone presentation? <- My roommate is a genius :-)

bassoon_chica @ 2009-04-29T23:40:00

2009-04-30T03:43:23Z

I got a car! I got a car! I got a car!

I am now the proud owner of a 2004 Honda Civic EX. It only has 55K miles, is Honda certified, has a moonroof and CD player, and is a wonderful sparkly shiny silver :-)

This level of excitement may be rivaled only by the Christmas when, um, well...if I combine all my Christmas happy ever, that's probably about what I'm feeling right now :-)

Pictures to come! Now all I need is a place to live for the summer!

Grad School, Part 5

2009-03-26T22:43:59Z

This will probably be my final grad school update (thank goodness!).

I accepted the offer from Purdue, so starting August 17, I will be a Boilermaker, whatever the hell that is.

I'm sure I'll still worry about my decision for a couple more weeks, then stop worrying about it as the FE consumes every ounce of my time. Oh senior year...7 weeks and I'm out of Ada :-O

Grad School, Part 4

2009-03-10T04:08:12Z

Today I got my happy email from Stanford :-) They can't/won't offer me funding or reimburse me to fly out to CA for a visit, but I'm in. Success!

Grad School, Part 3

2009-03-08T00:52:38Z

So after three days and 9 hours of driving, I made it to Purdue and back. I'll have to admit that I was pretty damn impressed with Purdue, especially their lab facilities and their food. Before visiting, I was pretty sure I had my mind made up, but now that I've been bombarded by Boilermakers, I am super confused. I think I'll just let everything sit for a few days, then start sending out more emails and see what happens. le sigh...

Grad school, Part 2

2009-02-16T23:27:32Z

I'M IN AT NOTRE DAME!

Like Doctoral program, I'm getting paid to go to school, I'm FREAKING OUT because I'm so excited

in at Notre Dame.

Grad school, Part 1

2009-02-10T23:43:55Z

Purdue has accepted me into their ME Master's program :-O

I am terrified at the prospect of spending more time in school with lots of really smart (and probably the majority will be male and foreign) students. I'd really rather be waiting with baited breath by my mailbox, but instead my gmail account gets to deliver the happy news.

What ever happened to the days of admissions letters? The joy of the big envelope, the defeat and sadness of the one-sheeters....

But anyhoo...grad school! At Purdue?!??!??

Presents!

2009-01-20T06:14:13Z

The first six (6) people to respond to this post will get something made by me. It will be about or tailored to those six who respond first.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
⇒ I make no guarantees that you will like what I make.
⇒ What I create will be just for you.
⇒ It'll be done this year.
⇒ You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a mix CD. It may be a story. I may build something. I might bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
⇒ I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you have to put this in your journal as well, if you expect me to do something for you!

Last first track meet

2009-01-17T04:43:23Z

Tonight was the season opener for ONU indoor track & field. I'm one of the crazies who runs distance, and I volunteered for the 3K.

For those unfamiliar with indoor track, a 3K is 3000 meters, 15 laps, around a track. Indoors. With really dry, warm air. And drafty parts where -5 degree air is blowing in. You have people constantly cheering/screaming at you.

In short: best thing ever.

I am proud to announce that I started off my senior track season with a 10 second PR :-) Seeing me run around a track in my bun huggers is why you all should visit Ada on Friday nights during the winter. Really and truly :-D

That, and the fact that my roomie gave me a huge penguin mug filled with hugs and kisses, and that I am now the proud owner of pick-up sticks! I love being 22!

Second day of 2009

2009-01-02T21:46:14Z

I'm back in Ada on January 2. This is my favorite way to ring in the New Year. My celebration at home was rather uneventful, except mum mixed things up with pizza rolls instead of egg rolls this year. No Scrabble, just a nifty new game I'm slowly becoming obsessed with: Blink.

My apartment room looks like a tornado hit it, but I'm trying to get super organized. I didn't really make any resolutions for 2009, only to do what I do well even better. I think that's a pretty good idea: keep kicking ass at what I already am kick-ass awesome at doing :-)

Here's to 2009...it's going to be a great year!

I may have done something I might regret....by Friday

2008-12-17T05:48:41Z

i am blond now. pictures on facebook to come later.

rosie went overboard with the highlighting stuff. instead of having sunkissed streaks, i am blond. i anticipate lots of double-takes and scream/gasp-y things tomorrow.

here's to changes and everything they bring...cheers!

editing this wednesday morning: i do not like all the blond-ness. i just can't do it. we are frying my poor hair and adding darker stuff ASAP. i feel bad for my hair at this point, and only hope that it doesn't decide to all fall out :-(

I am amused by school...

2008-12-03T00:07:47Z

Today was probably the best day of classes I've ever had. Dr. Rider is unreasonable attached to his chalkboards. There's always been one room in Biggs that just has chalkboards.

NO MORE

One wall of chalkboards is gone and is now dry erase boards. Our Engineering Econ class is in a room with ONLY whiteboards. I keep waiting for him to pack up our class today and move to his chalkboard room, or walk in a refuse to teach because there was no chalkboard in the classroom.

Instead, he actually used the dry erase board. You could tell that he died a little bit every time he uncapped the marker.

It's time for you to retire, Michael J. Rider. You are going the way of the chalkboard, and this is ONU's way of saying this, quite nicely, of course, because he seems like the scary sort of man that hides an AK-47 in the pallets of Rip energy drinks he keeps in his office...

bassoon_chica @ 2008-09-10T23:58:00

2008-09-10T04:02:41Z

So I made it through my last first day of class.

I'm really tired of school already. Mainly, it's just freshman and paying out the wazoo for school. It would be great if the giant universal remotes at Dollar General worked so that I could pause time and put classes on hold and just enjoy the friends/goofy shit part of college.

Alas, the remotes are $10+, which is really steep for Dollar General's quality merchandise. The only thing on hold/paused today was my life for the better part of half an hour when I was in the NEW AND IMPROVED (in sparkle shiny letters!) NOM. I did get a free 'breast cancer awareness' cookie out of it, though, for being ever so patient as I stood in the looooong line.

Nothing says boobs and cancer like pink chocolate chips.

I'm thrilled to be a senior.

~shaz

bassoon_chica @ 2008-08-17T15:33:00

2008-08-17T19:41:13Z

My parents epitomize the Olympic spirit, let me tell you.

My dad watches the Games on the ridiculous 7' (or something equally large...nothing like being able to see every individual drop of sweat out of each pore blown up 2x real size) plasma tv in the basement. Admittedly, his favorite sport is beach volleyball. He's turning into quite the lecherous old man...

Mum is all about Jason LEEEEzak, as she pronounces his name. She was complaining about all the media hype over Phelps until my sister reminded her that once the Games are over, all we're going to hear about are Obama and McCain. At that point, she decided Phelps is infinitely better that politicians, and LEEEEzak is better than Phelps. She's also pretty into beach volleyball and basketball, but ends up talking through entire sets/games when they get close. In the case of both Phelps' races last night, she started walking around the living room (better door than a window, mum), and then doing her old-lady-with-bad-knees hopping when it came down to the last 15 meters.

Speaking of meters...the US should really convert to the metric system. You'd think that the Olympics would be a perfect opportunity for the government to do this. The marathon is the only Olympic event measured in miles, but they still have kilometer marks up on the course. Metric distance races, metric measurements for field events....then poor sleep-deprived NBC commentator have to bust out the mental math to convert it into feet and inches for poor America. Like the commentators haven't said enough stupid stuff already...

Oh, Olympics. Beastly Michael Phelps and skeleton-esque distance runners steal my sleeping time, but I couldn't be happier. Long live sport!

bassoon_chica @ 2008-08-05T00:52:00

2008-08-05T00:58:15Z

I made it through my last Monday this summer at NASA...thank god. I am terribly bored at work right now, with my primary mentor gone and my other contact person out Thursday and Friday. I'm in the process of charging my iPod so I can play games and/or listen to the 'Across the Universe' soundtrack whilst working on GRE stuff. Oh yeah, and writing up a technical memo/report thing. I would like to bring a pillow to work and curl up with my warm computer and be paid to actually sleep (instead of sleepwork/sleepwalk) for 8 hours. Really, I loved this internship, but it's hard to be motivated when no one in charge of me is around!

I am out of motivation. Completely and utterly out.

In other news, the visit to Ada to see the roomie was lovely. I am getting excited to head back. I know it's just about the people and not about the classes (as much fun as I had with Dr. Sawyers in Heat Transfer, I am NOT ready for 10 weeks of learning...yet).

Megan is coming up from Strongsville so we can go to the Cuyahoga County Fair tomorrow night. At 9:30pm, of course, because no one in their right mind should want to pay $5.95 (wtf kind of pricing is that??) to get into a fair, but $3 is much more reasonable. Then I have more money for deep fried deliciousness.

bassoon_chica @ 2008-07-13T02:21:00

2008-07-13T02:23:35Z

Driving home with my family from Cedar Point this evening, I realized that my dad is the type of driver that would piss me off if I weren't riding with him.

I hate people that tailgate (check) and change lanes/exit without signaling (check again). I also hate people that blow past you, then merge back in the lane RIGHT in front of you (lemme think...yup, check again). So basically, the only thing keeping me from cursing at my father as he drives is the fact that I'm in the car with him.

Other than that realization, today was a great day! I got to spend the entire day at CEDAR POINT, had Steak n Shake for dinner, and mom made chocolate cake; I am the proud owner of three pieces...yum :-)