So my internet is being screwy... and I don't enjoy it one bit. My internet connection, rather like my phone, is just one of those things... without it I feel naked.
And right now I have something sorted (after spending about an hour on the phone with my own personal Geek Squad... My beloved bro! Thanks bruvver!)
I even baked a loaf of banana bread while I waited for Duncan to mess with things and play around with settings in a really cool and spiffy way. I logged onto a website and suddenly he can access my computer. Which would, in any other circumstance, be a very bad thing... but for this, it was uber convenient. I mean, I can't exactly make him drive all the way down to San Antonio... though I might have begged a bit.
But I won't be showing you the banana bread. Because it would take SO MUCH TIME TO UPLOAD.
Wanna know why?
10 mbps.
That's my cruising speed.
Eeeew.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Went back to the ranch
I went back home this weekend, and even brought my laundry with me!! (Yaaaay!)
(Hey! I had to. It's what's expected!)
I mooched around this weekend... went to my Dad's house for dinner on Saturday night, went shopping and ate lunch at Aunt Leslie's house, and saw a movie with Kerry-Lynn on Sunday, and today I made peanut butter cookies and went to Academy with Kerry-Lynn and bought stuff! (Yaaay!)
What a long weekend, eh? Let me tell you a few things that rocked about this weekend.
First: Mom bought me an early birthday present!
Isn't it pretty? I haven't come up with a name for it yet (will I name it?) but this will prove quite an investment. Considering that I will be moving from place to place for the next few years and will likely not settle down anywhere for a while... I want to have a piano with me. Piano has been such a large part of my life for so long, I can't imagine not having my chosen instrument near me. I am so glad that this is portable... and doesn't need to be retuned every year!
So now it's in the apartment under our whiteboard... which is practically the only place to put it.
Another addition to the apartment are these things. I mooched about in our basement and found a badass tea kettle and a nonstick frying pan!
(Yaaaay! NONSTICK!)
Another addition was a gift to me after the spring play at St. Michael's. The tradition is that on the last performance (The Sunday matinee) the junior class students present gifts to the seniors in the show that have something to do with the production. The gift that I received was this door-hanging-thing.
Everyone signed it, and I love it! My character in You Can't Take It With You was a woman named Mrs. Kirby, and at one point, she catches sight of a tank full of snakes and screams... so the Juniors put a snake on my door-hanging-thing. (Clever, eh?)
This morning I made the most fantastic peanut butter cookies.
These things are gooooood. (And look! they have the little criss-crossy thing like Gramma does! Mom walked by while I was rolling the dough and pointed out that I should do that.) The problem is, they're so good, I will likely eat nothing but these cookies for the next few days. At least I know what I'm having for breakfast! (Just kidding, mother... I'll have coffee and toast too...)
And lastly, this afternoon, Kerry-Lynn and I went to Academy and bought me (as mom so eloquently put it) a 'Walker-Thing'. If you don't speak the Mother Tongue (Hahahaha!), I bought a pedometer.
Step count for today: 359. Because I only bought it at 3pm this afternoon and drove for an hour and half. And since then, I've just walked around the apartment all evening. Tomorrow, you will see a few more steps.
(Hey! I had to. It's what's expected!)
I mooched around this weekend... went to my Dad's house for dinner on Saturday night, went shopping and ate lunch at Aunt Leslie's house, and saw a movie with Kerry-Lynn on Sunday, and today I made peanut butter cookies and went to Academy with Kerry-Lynn and bought stuff! (Yaaay!)
What a long weekend, eh? Let me tell you a few things that rocked about this weekend.
First: Mom bought me an early birthday present!
Isn't it pretty? I haven't come up with a name for it yet (will I name it?) but this will prove quite an investment. Considering that I will be moving from place to place for the next few years and will likely not settle down anywhere for a while... I want to have a piano with me. Piano has been such a large part of my life for so long, I can't imagine not having my chosen instrument near me. I am so glad that this is portable... and doesn't need to be retuned every year!
So now it's in the apartment under our whiteboard... which is practically the only place to put it.
Another addition to the apartment are these things. I mooched about in our basement and found a badass tea kettle and a nonstick frying pan!
(Yaaaay! NONSTICK!)
Another addition was a gift to me after the spring play at St. Michael's. The tradition is that on the last performance (The Sunday matinee) the junior class students present gifts to the seniors in the show that have something to do with the production. The gift that I received was this door-hanging-thing.
Everyone signed it, and I love it! My character in You Can't Take It With You was a woman named Mrs. Kirby, and at one point, she catches sight of a tank full of snakes and screams... so the Juniors put a snake on my door-hanging-thing. (Clever, eh?)
This morning I made the most fantastic peanut butter cookies.
These things are gooooood. (And look! they have the little criss-crossy thing like Gramma does! Mom walked by while I was rolling the dough and pointed out that I should do that.) The problem is, they're so good, I will likely eat nothing but these cookies for the next few days. At least I know what I'm having for breakfast! (Just kidding, mother... I'll have coffee and toast too...)
And lastly, this afternoon, Kerry-Lynn and I went to Academy and bought me (as mom so eloquently put it) a 'Walker-Thing'. If you don't speak the Mother Tongue (Hahahaha!), I bought a pedometer.
Step count for today: 359. Because I only bought it at 3pm this afternoon and drove for an hour and half. And since then, I've just walked around the apartment all evening. Tomorrow, you will see a few more steps.
Friday, August 29, 2008
En garde!
One of the pieces of advice that I was given many times before I left to go to college, was to join as many clubs, groups, and organizations as I possibly could... and then narrow it down to three to continue with.
So far, I've joined just one. But it's REALLY COOL.
Tonight I went to the first fencing club meeting.
Fencing! Seriously! Like with foils, funny bee-keeper-lookin masks, and white costumes and everything. Tonight I spent 3 hours learning how to fence. Proper stances, parries, and other such things... But I can definitely feel my legs and butt muscles right now in a way that I haven't in a long time. (Ooooh those muscles huuuurt!)
I expected them to give us an intro to stances and maybe show us the foils and then send us on our merry way... but no. They taught us for about 2 hours and then said "Had enough yet?" And when they got 15 solid "No"s from everyone in the class, they suited us up and said "Go." Which rocked. You learn so much more from actually participating and trying to apply the rules (but breaking most of them anyway.)
But what surprised me most was that it seems to be something that I could actually pick up and do well in. Because of taking Tae Kwon Do for so many years, I have the balance thing down (and many of the stances are similar to those in TKD) and while I know that it would take a lot of effort to become really good at it, it seems like I could totally do it.
So I'm going to enjoy my night and sleep late tomorrow. Tomorrow is cleaning day... and then I'll drive home and mooch about in Austin for the weekend. :) Yay!
(Ooooow... my legs.)
So far, I've joined just one. But it's REALLY COOL.
Tonight I went to the first fencing club meeting.
Fencing! Seriously! Like with foils, funny bee-keeper-lookin masks, and white costumes and everything. Tonight I spent 3 hours learning how to fence. Proper stances, parries, and other such things... But I can definitely feel my legs and butt muscles right now in a way that I haven't in a long time. (Ooooh those muscles huuuurt!)
I expected them to give us an intro to stances and maybe show us the foils and then send us on our merry way... but no. They taught us for about 2 hours and then said "Had enough yet?" And when they got 15 solid "No"s from everyone in the class, they suited us up and said "Go." Which rocked. You learn so much more from actually participating and trying to apply the rules (but breaking most of them anyway.)
But what surprised me most was that it seems to be something that I could actually pick up and do well in. Because of taking Tae Kwon Do for so many years, I have the balance thing down (and many of the stances are similar to those in TKD) and while I know that it would take a lot of effort to become really good at it, it seems like I could totally do it.
So I'm going to enjoy my night and sleep late tomorrow. Tomorrow is cleaning day... and then I'll drive home and mooch about in Austin for the weekend. :) Yay!
(Ooooow... my legs.)
Thursday, August 28, 2008
More classes and a stupid mistake
So I betcha yall are just BURNING UP waiting for me to post and see how my classes were today, right?
(I knew it!! Yes!)
Today I had Politics and Astronomy... A little birdy told me that they will be hard classes, but they sound so cool. I had Politics this morning and it's one of my Large and Populated Lecture Hall Classes... So large, it shocked me every time the professor said the number.
Anyone wanna guess?
If your answer 436, you're right. (If it wasn't, you're out of luck. And you're not a very good guesser.)
The thing is, when you're in the room, it doesn't seem like such a large number. The professor is just so interesting and he involves the students so much that it seems like it's just you and him. It seems like this class will be a good one.
And astronomy... I've always wanted to take an astronomy class. In years past in science classes, my ears have always perked highest when discussing stars, the solar system, anything that exists above our atmosphere. "Friend Moon" is arguably my best and longest friend, and at any chance I would write a paper for science class about stars. There are not as many people in my astronomy class as politics (Only 245) and the professor seems to know that most of us are in there for a science credit... but I am so thrilled to finally get to explore something I actually want to learn. This hasn't happened very often in high school (The three best classes I took in High School: Brit Lit, Newspaper, and Roman History) and I can't wait to get to learning this stuff.
So aside from classes today, two things worth blogging about occurred.
The first was when Abby and I went to have lunch at the Roadrunner Cafe (a trek all the way to the other side of campus... which we decided to drive.) I had my sandwich in hand and Abby was waiting in the line for something to be prepared, and a girl came over and asked to sit down. We started chatting, and seemed really nice. She's a CAP student and a Freshman, who is living in one of the dorms on campus, and when there was a lull in the conversation, I held out my hand and said "My name is Stefanie, by the way."
And she turned around and replied, "Hey! My name is Stefani too!" (And except for the obvious lack of an 'e' on the end of her name, she seems really cool. I suppose I'll forgive her her parent's faulty spelling skills... hehehe) And it turns out that we have our math class together, so now I have a math buddy!
When Abby sat down a few minutes later, she said "There's more of you around here?!" Apparently so!
The other thing worth noting that happened today was a bit of a mistake. Apparently if you spend all summer in Europe where the rain follows you everywhere and the sun isn't as directly pointed at you... you forget to bring (and wear) sunscreen.
Yup, that's right folks. It turns out that today, the weather frog was actually right. (Aww! Lookit him hanging on a cloud!)
In the 1 hour and 20 minutes that I spent walking back and forth from classes (20 minutes each way) I got a sunburn. Not a bad one, but one that is definitely there.
So it seems that I have two options:
1) Wear a lotion with sunscreen in it. (Or just sunscreen. I'm not picky.)
OR
2) Begin to wear sweatshirts all the time... because it's less skin exposure.
I'm thinking option 1... because it's easier to put on sunscreen than to learn to deal with heatstroke.
(I knew it!! Yes!)
Today I had Politics and Astronomy... A little birdy told me that they will be hard classes, but they sound so cool. I had Politics this morning and it's one of my Large and Populated Lecture Hall Classes... So large, it shocked me every time the professor said the number.
Anyone wanna guess?
If your answer 436, you're right. (If it wasn't, you're out of luck. And you're not a very good guesser.)
The thing is, when you're in the room, it doesn't seem like such a large number. The professor is just so interesting and he involves the students so much that it seems like it's just you and him. It seems like this class will be a good one.
And astronomy... I've always wanted to take an astronomy class. In years past in science classes, my ears have always perked highest when discussing stars, the solar system, anything that exists above our atmosphere. "Friend Moon" is arguably my best and longest friend, and at any chance I would write a paper for science class about stars. There are not as many people in my astronomy class as politics (Only 245) and the professor seems to know that most of us are in there for a science credit... but I am so thrilled to finally get to explore something I actually want to learn. This hasn't happened very often in high school (The three best classes I took in High School: Brit Lit, Newspaper, and Roman History) and I can't wait to get to learning this stuff.
So aside from classes today, two things worth blogging about occurred.
The first was when Abby and I went to have lunch at the Roadrunner Cafe (a trek all the way to the other side of campus... which we decided to drive.) I had my sandwich in hand and Abby was waiting in the line for something to be prepared, and a girl came over and asked to sit down. We started chatting, and seemed really nice. She's a CAP student and a Freshman, who is living in one of the dorms on campus, and when there was a lull in the conversation, I held out my hand and said "My name is Stefanie, by the way."
And she turned around and replied, "Hey! My name is Stefani too!" (And except for the obvious lack of an 'e' on the end of her name, she seems really cool. I suppose I'll forgive her her parent's faulty spelling skills... hehehe) And it turns out that we have our math class together, so now I have a math buddy!
When Abby sat down a few minutes later, she said "There's more of you around here?!" Apparently so!
The other thing worth noting that happened today was a bit of a mistake. Apparently if you spend all summer in Europe where the rain follows you everywhere and the sun isn't as directly pointed at you... you forget to bring (and wear) sunscreen.
Yup, that's right folks. It turns out that today, the weather frog was actually right. (Aww! Lookit him hanging on a cloud!)
In the 1 hour and 20 minutes that I spent walking back and forth from classes (20 minutes each way) I got a sunburn. Not a bad one, but one that is definitely there.
So it seems that I have two options:
1) Wear a lotion with sunscreen in it. (Or just sunscreen. I'm not picky.)
OR
2) Begin to wear sweatshirts all the time... because it's less skin exposure.
I'm thinking option 1... because it's easier to put on sunscreen than to learn to deal with heatstroke.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
As fate would have it
The weather frog was wrong again today, it rained. REALLY hard.
And so we had to add to him. (No umbrella today - He's got a tree for cover.)
The only thing good about this is that I get to go and take really good pictures of the tree outside my apartment. (Go ahead. Click on them. They get bigger and you can see how superawesomecool they are.)
And so we had to add to him. (No umbrella today - He's got a tree for cover.)
The only thing good about this is that I get to go and take really good pictures of the tree outside my apartment. (Go ahead. Click on them. They get bigger and you can see how superawesomecool they are.)
Weather Frog Update and Classes!
What's the weather frog telling me today?
Weather Frog is telling me that there are a few clouds outside (named Dorrie and Morrie) and tha it's sunny... and so hot that he really wants somewhere to swim and drink a margarita. (Wait - or is that me?)
Today I had my first college classes!
My day started at 7:45 this morning when I stumbled into the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker and eat cottage cheese and apple butter (Yum!) for breakfast and then I got ready and left the apartment at 8:30. It took me about fifteen minutes to walk across the parking lot and get to my class. The first class I had was a 9am Freshman Composition... and it seems like it'll be a pretty easy and straightforward class. It's all about writing papers... and we all know what a terrible and unstructured writer I am! The teacher is a lovely woman in her early sixties (I'm just guessing) who seems to be a really sweet person. I don't know what kind of teacher she is, because she just outlined the class and chatted with us today, but it seems like she'll be a straightforward and good teacher.
My French class is another story. The teacher spoke in French the entire time. Luckily, with my 8-year history of Spanish class in Elementary, Middle, AND High School ( <- This is why I'm taking French...) I understood more or less what the professor was saying... unlike the poor people sitting on either side of me who had previously taken German and Sign Language. I had to whisper translations to them! I don't think it'll be an easy class but I think I might pick it up quickly. :) I learned the alphabet, how to count to 20, and basic greetings and farewells. I feel smart...ish.
My last class today was my math class... Which is totally oriented toward COLFA (College of Liberal and Fine Arts) people like myself. We're the "Not Math" People... and I think that this will be a good class for me to take. All the tests are open book, but the teacher said that if we attend class and do the (optional) homework, we shouldn't need to use the books at all.
So now that I have the afternoon to myself (and since I already did my French homework... Lookit me all motivated!) I think I will go run for an hour at the Rec center.
(And when I say 'run' I mean walk a lot and occasionally jog a lap around the indoor track.)
Weather Frog is telling me that there are a few clouds outside (named Dorrie and Morrie) and tha it's sunny... and so hot that he really wants somewhere to swim and drink a margarita. (Wait - or is that me?)
Today I had my first college classes!
My day started at 7:45 this morning when I stumbled into the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker and eat cottage cheese and apple butter (Yum!) for breakfast and then I got ready and left the apartment at 8:30. It took me about fifteen minutes to walk across the parking lot and get to my class. The first class I had was a 9am Freshman Composition... and it seems like it'll be a pretty easy and straightforward class. It's all about writing papers... and we all know what a terrible and unstructured writer I am! The teacher is a lovely woman in her early sixties (I'm just guessing) who seems to be a really sweet person. I don't know what kind of teacher she is, because she just outlined the class and chatted with us today, but it seems like she'll be a straightforward and good teacher.
My French class is another story. The teacher spoke in French the entire time. Luckily, with my 8-year history of Spanish class in Elementary, Middle, AND High School ( <- This is why I'm taking French...) I understood more or less what the professor was saying... unlike the poor people sitting on either side of me who had previously taken German and Sign Language. I had to whisper translations to them! I don't think it'll be an easy class but I think I might pick it up quickly. :) I learned the alphabet, how to count to 20, and basic greetings and farewells. I feel smart...ish.
My last class today was my math class... Which is totally oriented toward COLFA (College of Liberal and Fine Arts) people like myself. We're the "Not Math" People... and I think that this will be a good class for me to take. All the tests are open book, but the teacher said that if we attend class and do the (optional) homework, we shouldn't need to use the books at all.
So now that I have the afternoon to myself (and since I already did my French homework... Lookit me all motivated!) I think I will go run for an hour at the Rec center.
(And when I say 'run' I mean walk a lot and occasionally jog a lap around the indoor track.)
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