I've come home to a world of confusion. The house is being remodeled and so right now there is no kitchen. I keep forgetting that and start thinking about how, when I'm thirsty, I'll go get a glass from the cupboard and get a drink of water. Then I remember that there is no cupboard to get a glass from, and there isn't a sink to get water out of in the kitchen. It's all very strange.

Time is also different. At school I always know the day, the month, the season, but here I don't. I keep thinking it's either Christmas, or early spring. Yesterday at the store I had no idea what the date was when I went to write a check. Everything feels jumbled up in my head.

I also have trouble concentrating. Occasionaly I'll be able to sit down and read a book, or watch a movie, but for the most part I need to look at a mazagine at the same time that I'm watching tv. Yesterday at the bookstore I found a book that I was interested in buying, but I wanted to read a tiny bit of it just to make sure. It may as well have been me reading my mil art text book. I would look at the words, about half of them I'd actually be able to look at long enough to read, but of those words that I'd read, most of them would not proccess in my head at all.

I'm slowly unwinding just in time to have to go back to my world of lots of stress, little time, and no sleep. Term End Exams are two weeks away, and then on the 18th I fly back here for two weeks. Why is this semester so much harder then the previous ones?

Umm, where did my last post go? I just published it. Oh well.

Plans for the break:
Crash
Sleep
relax
forget about West Point
Hopefully hang out with Misha, Matt, Becki, Frank,
Crash
Enjoy Thanksgiving with my family
Crash
forget about West Point
Crash
relax
perhaps get some clothes for winter (although i'm very low on money)
make a new Joe Bear episode
Crash
forget about West Point
call Stephanie
Crash

get the picture?

I am now home for Thanksgiving. Now I shall procceed to crash for the next three days. No thinking, no moving, no working, no caring...nothing. Well, I may actually take my english prof's suggestion and rent the movie Burnt By the Sun and watch it for the 2.5 time. We have to watch it for class, and we're supposed to watch it at least 3 times. Who knows.

My CS teacher is awesome! He emailed us all today telling us to look at the anouncement page on the CS384 website, but I didn't get around to it until right now. On it, he said that he moved the resubmission of project 3A and the submission of project 3B to lesson 37, which is the Wednesday after Thanksgiving! More time to work on it, less stress, this is awesome!

Go Mil Art! Go far, far away...please. The thing that keeps me going in that class is the fact that I'm getting it over with now, and next year I won't have to suffer through it like the majority of my classmates. My Civil War paper needs just under 300 more words and then some revision. Tonight appears to be an alnighter night for the majority of cows and firsties on the crew team. What makes it even better is that we have practice at 0530 tomorrow morning. I don't think Coach Steve will like it when most of us fall asleep while he's teaching us new exericse and weight lifting things. Actually, I'm hoping to get to bed for a few hours tonight. We'll see.

Left to do: Finish mil art paper, CS project, build EE lab 5, Math quiz.

1.5 days...

Two and a half days...I can make it...only two and a half days. I have to remember to take the Army-Navy game tickets home.

What is a good thesis for a paper on the Capture of Forts Henry and Donelson during the Civil War? My teacher told me my original thesis would be kind of hard to prove, although I may stick to it. Actually, looking at it again, and given the information I've come across, I may stick to the original thesis.

Tomorrow I have english class again. I really do not want to go to that class and get my essay back.

Yesterday I slept in until 11:30. At 12:30 Jordan, Heather, Leah, Jenny, and I went over to the Schumachers house. Amanda, Josh, Celio, Brian, and Alicia all came later on. We watched the UofM vs OSU game. It was awesome, especially when Michigan beat OSU. GO BLUE!!!

Last night I went to the O.A.R. concert at Ike Hall. Jordan and I went down about half an hour before the show to get tickets. It was pretty good, although right afterwords I couldn't hear very well. They played a few of the songs that I like by them, such as Black Rock and It Was A Crazy Game of Poker. Virginia Coalition opened for them.

This is very strange. For the first time I don't have the urge to fight. Not even a bit. It's very abnormal for me.
Know what is cool? Typing without looking at what I am typing or even paying attention to it. My fingers are flying around the key board. It's typing out my thoughts.

Is Leah hurt? I hope not. Crap. It looks like she is. She's on the ground and not moving. This is not good. The shoulder is already hurt really badly. So badly that they will not even operate on it. She's just laying there not moving.

(Occured when Celio and Leah were wrestling. Leah eventually got up, but had to ice her shoulder for awhile.)

Little Josh is running around prentending to shoot things. He's using two legos as weapons.

I think the cup of coffee that I had around 11pm was a bad idea. I'm still awake and not tired. Tomorrow I can sleep in :) At 12:30 some of my friends and myself are going over to the Schumachers' house for the afternoon. I plan on taking my laptop and Mil Art stuff so that I can work on my paper. Of course, I'll be watching the UM vs OSU game at the same time. Leah...you're going down! GO BLUE!

A few nights ago Matt called me, and this time I actually knew who he was. Part of the conversation was about how my life was going. I made some comment about how I feel like I'm headed in a really good direction, have my life back on track, and life is a lot better then it was last semester. Since I've only talked to him a few times in the past few months, he's been able to really notice the change in me and said that he was really happy about it. I can't remember the exact conversation, so I may be putting words in his mouth, I'm sorry. Anyway, the point is that when I compare myself now with the person I was a semester ago, there is a dramatic difference in a good way. I believe Romans 8:6 when it says "All things work together for good for those who love God." I'm stronger, happier, more confident, and most importantly, closer to God. I started to drift apart from Him, but I've come back and have greatly matured and am even stronger in my beliefs and what I stand for. The friends I have now are ones who I know I can trust, depend on, and my closets ones are the ones who I go to Church and to OCF with. My relationships with my friends and family are so much better. I'm thankful to God for the good kick that he gave me to get me back in line.

In other news...GO MICHIGAN!!!! BEAT OHIO STATE!!!

The first big game is tomorrow. UofM vs OSU. GO BLUE!!!

Yesterday for crew practice we met at Mac Statue and went for a run. A few of the people on the team have to take the APFT today because they were injured at the time of the original one. Due to them taking the APFT, and a lot of people not showing up, Anne and I were the only ones running the original route planned out for practice. About 2/3 of the way through the run we found a lacrosse ball up by Michie Stadium, and proceeded to bounce it back and forth between us for the rest of the run. It was easy to catch if it only bounced once, but if it took a second bounce, then the ball suddenly took off and became harder to catch. A few times one of us missed catching it and it would bounce into the road. bouncing the ball made the run go by faster, and also a little better work out because we would have to sprint a little to catch the ball.

SCUSA's loose....But not loose like 2 years ago with the infamous power point presentation. There are lots of civilian college students walking all over the place, staying in the barracks, and eating in the mess hall. I wonder what they think about life here and cadets.

In less then a week I'll be home. No projects, papers, wpr's, homework, or practice for 3+ days. I can't really count Wednesday or Sunday, since I'll be at West Point for part of those days. Before now and then I have a math quiz, ee quiz, ee lab #5, cs project, and a mil art paper. Fun times.

Last night was great. After thanksgiving dinner I came back to my room and realized that I have a Mil Art drop today. I turned on the TV to see if there was anything on. That is something I haven't done in the longest time, but I felt like I needed a little break from work. Around 8:30 I decided to take a 30 min nap, so I set my alarm and went to bed. I woke up 3 hours later when TAPs sounded. I got up, talked to a few people, did a little work, and then went back to bed at 12:30. This morning I got up at 5:05 for practice and felt really good. 8 hours of sleep is amazing, especially coming off no sleep the night before.

Alyson and I just got back from turning in our rifles. If only the could stay turned in forever. Well, actually for me that may happen the way I feel right now. Last night I had an IR video lecture thingy, EE lab #5 prelim, CS project 3 resubmission, and and english essay to write. I didn't sleep at all, not even a tiny nap. Then, today in math class I got back my wpr and visions of sugarplumes were definetly not dancing in my head when I saw the 54%. Hmm, perhaps if they were talking sugar plumes who were telling me that STAP really isn't that bad then they'd be dancing in my head.

More later.

Beware of squirting contact containers.
One attacked me right now as I tried to open it. The other one tried, but wasn't very successfull.
Mawhahaha! Take that contact containers. (pounds container with fist)
Ahhh! I'M MELTING! I'M MELTING! (contact container spills contents on me)
It's not over contact containers. You may have won this round, but I'll be back...with my glasses. You better watch out.
MAWHHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHAHA

I feel like the crew team is falling apart. Two people sent out emails tonight telling us they weren't rowing anymore. In all we're losing 4 people this semester with Heather going back to USNA. I don't know how to describe how feel. I guess sad is the best word.

Bite off less, chew more. This almost passes. F.

GO SOSH!!! GO FAR, FAR AWAY.

There's a meteor shower late tonight/very very early in the morning. Anne, Adam, and I are planning on going to watch it around 4:45am, right before Anne and I head down to practice.

I just finished my second cup of coffee for the night. The sosh paper really is not that hard, but I am a slow writer. I have about 3/4 of it done at the moment, but I'm looking at a late night. Hopefully the sosh run will not be an actual sosh run for me. As of this moment, I have no plans nor ideas of how to dress up for the run. Perhaps I'll just go and take pictures of other people.

Recently I've found that I like I really like listening to classical piano music while I do homework. Johannes Stauffer's first CD is usually the music of choice, largely due to the fact that it is the only CD of that genre that I own, but I've also found that Radio@Netscape has a pretty good collection of music of all types.

It's grey and rainy out today. Fun stuff.

I have nothing to write about right now, yet I am still writing. Mainly I am writing to take up space.

Ich weiss nicht. Ich bin Auslander und spreche nicht gut Deutsch. Huete ist Montag. Ich heisse Kate. Ich bin 20 Jahre alt.

I just recieved an email from my CS teacher saying that my CS prelim submission is missing some parts and needs more work. It's due again on Wednesday for 85%. Before Thanksgiving I have my sosh paper, Mil Art paper, English Essay, EE lab 5, and CS project all due. When it rains it pours, and it never stops raining here.

Waking up at 2am in the morning to a guy dressed only in boxer shorts standing at my computer looking at something on my desk is definetly very weird. My first thought was "so that is why my computer has been acting so strange," but then I realized that my computer hadn't been acting strange at all and I had no logical explination for he'd be in my room, especially under the present conditions. I procceded to ask him what he was doing, and he turned and said "Who is that?" I told him my name and he then said something like "sh--, I'm really sorry. I thought this was John's room." Or maybe it was that he was looking for John's room. In anycase, I realized who it was and figured that he was still really drunk from going out drinking after branching. He started to stumble towards the door and almost walked right into one of the doors for the closet thing. I asked him if he needed any help because I didn't want him stumbling around the halls and perhaps walking into another room that wasn't his, or walking into something and injuring himself. He said no and managed to make it out of the room. I realized that Alyson was awake and so we both said that was really weird and I told her who I thought it was. Then, I said a little prayer and went back to sleep. In the morning I asked her if it had been an dream, hoping that perhaps it had been, but she said no, it really did happen. After breakfast formation he came up to me and asked if it had been a dream, but I said no. He then apologized over and over again. He said that he must have been sleep walking because he woke up when I started to talk to him. He said that he needed to stop drinking and I agreed with him.

Joe Bear is now at a new location. http://www.thingsnoted.com/joebear


HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY ANNE!

This weekend I:
-went to an Army Hockey game on Friday night
-was a firstie in the parade on Saturday
-was a member of E1 for the marchon at the football game
-went out to dinner and saw Master and Commander with Leah, Celio, Mike, Kristen, and Alex
-went to Church with Amanda
-Baked about 5 dozen gingerbread cookies at the OCF house with Elisa and Kate (aka Martha Stewart and Betty Crocker respectively)
-gained the nickname Sarah Lee
-listened to the Chief of Staff of the Army, General Schoomaker, speak to the Corps on Branch Night for the firsties
-had a good conversation with my parents

It's been a pretty good weekend, although not much work was done.

Army lost, I have a headache, but I also have a car tonight. Leah, Mike, Kristen, hopefully Celio, and I are going out to dinner and then to see Master and Commander. Good times.

This morning I woke up at 5:35am and realized that I was reaching over to push snooze on my alarm. That really confused me, because if I'm pressing snooze it is because it's after 6am and I don't have practice. Suddenly, it hit me that I'd been pressing snooze in my sleep for half an hour and practice had started 5 minuted earlier. I had two options. I could go saw screw it, go back to sleep and then later email the whole team and apologize for missing morning practice and do a 12k, or I could get up and sprint to practice. I choose to get up and sprint down there as fast as I could. We were in the tanks today. After practice I apologized to my coach for being late. He told me that Henry the 8th had three wives named Kathereine (although I think they spelled their names differently), and that two of them were beheaded. That made me feel great. Then he told me not to worry about it and I promised him it wouldn't happen again.

Yesterday after practice Anne and I went kite flying down at the river courts. It was so windy. We had a lot of fun, although it was pretty cold out.

The Hudson river had ice along the edges of it this morning. There was also snow on top of the ice from the flurries last night. Winter is coming. I want to go snowboarding.

Today was a pretty good day. At 1000 I got my flu shot and then went to the c-store. I bought a new green girl so that I can send my other one out in the laundry and not have to use the grey blanket. I don't like the grey blanket very much. Never have, probably never will. This afternoon I had a good feeling about my EE lab, the one that was due last week but that I couldn't get to work. I had a feeling that today I would get it, and after my last hour class I did.

Yesterday Coach informed us that he wanted us to row a 2k Wednesday, Thursday, or friday, but preferably Thursday. This afternoon I felt really good and had a feeling that i'd be a good 2k. It turns out I was correct. I knocked 4-5 seconds off my best time and got new personal best of 7:43.6. That's still 3.6 seconds from my goal of 7:40, but I'm getting there.

I need a new Bible study to do during my prayer time, and fast. I finished up reading The Power of a Praying Woman a few weeks ago, and since then my prayer time has dramatically decreased because I don't have a structure to it. I need stucture in my life.

There's a huge security inspection tomorrow. Everything over $40 is supposed to be locked up. Since a person's life is priceless, does that mean I'm supposed to lock myself in my trunk room locker for the day?

It's amazing how things change.

Recently I've been having trouble getting to sleep at night. That is very strange for me. Usually I fall asleep about 5-10 minutes after I go to bed, but for the past week or so I've been laying in bed tossing and turning for a long time. Last night I went to bed at 1am and was still awake at 2am. My mind keeps racing and I can't stop thinking about anything and everything. I think it's due mainly to stress.

This past weekend I ended up not going on pass at the last minute. I decided that it'd be best if I stayed here and worked.

I know that Thanksgiving is still 2 weeks away and Christmas is a month and a half away, but I've started listening to Christmas music. It cheers me up a bit.

Am I happy? Will the rest of my life be like this? If that is the case, then I don't think I want the rest of my life to happen. I want to wake up in the morning and be happy, like what I'm doing, and have hope. Right now I feel like I'm falling further and further behind each day and am more and more of a failure. I've come to realize that I like computers, how networks work, their physical components, and learning how to do creative things on the computer, but I'm not sure I actually like programming and the stuff I learn in CS. I love doing things with the computer when it is for other people, but I find it hard when it's only for a class and only benifits myself. Blah.

Sweet! ::w.bloggar has a spell check.

Life's been stressful recently. Thankfully tomorrow we don't have any classes due to Veteran's day. It's so weird having a day off in the middle of the week.

My Mom is awesome! She made a website for all of the Joe Bear episodes. The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Joe Bear (check out new link at http://www.thingsnoted.com/joebear)

Time for bed.

The appearace of a person's shoes reflects their life.

It's been a very grey week here. The sky, the buildings, but thankfully not the uniforms. It's Air Force week and so we're all in BDU's.

This weekend I'm probably headed to Ohio with some friends. Right now I'm debating about going because of a lot of work coming up in the next few weeks. I called Leah and told her I wasn't going to go, but then she started to convince me that I should go. Now I think I will.


It's late. I'm tired. I have a wpr and a quiz tomorrow which I am not ready for. I need sleep.

Score:
Anne: 5 billion points
Adam: 2 points (he got another point for realizing that I'd taken away a point).

Sometimes I wonder why my friends haven't had me commited as insane yet. They somehow put up with me making power point episodes about the adventures of my teddy bear, and my emails (with color pictures done in Paint) warning them to beware of the mini rainbow marshmellows, to mention only a few things I do. My conclusion is that either I am truely insane, or perhaps I'm just one of those brilliant people who is not intellectualy challeneged enough. Okay, neither of those are anywhere near being true. I'm just an average person ( a bit on the slow side actually), who is rather weird sometimes. I also like to use the word "just" a lot. I'm trying to cut that one out of my vocabulary. It's just not good writing....(joke).

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9

It came today! My Strongs Strongest Concordance and Bebo Norman cd finally arrived. Good stuff.

I sent out two more Joe Bear episodes last night. The email list is slowly growing and a lot of my friends tell me that they are forwarding it on to their friends. Definetly not what I expected when I made the first episode. As long as people like it I'm happy.

Yesterday I also rowed in the championship eight race before the quad race. We got 9th out of 15th in that race . I think this year is a building season for the team.

We push off the dock. Somehow I have to figure out how to steer the boat with my foot and row at the same time and become an expert at it before we reach the start of the race. It's a bit wobbly at first. I look over my shoulder on the recovry, but that causes my hands to drop and the boat to lean to one side. Steering is the exact opposite of how Anne descirbed it. If I point my foot left, then the boat goes left. It takes me a few minutes to get used to that. Abby keeps shouting back to me to stay away from the edge of the river because of sunken trees. We're doing pretty well and it looks like a straight strech for a bit. Look over my shoulder one more time and realize that a dock is 10 meters away and we're approaching it fast. I yell to wayen off and hold water. 4 meters from the dock we come to a rest. It's a close call, but no damage done. I'm still learning how to row and steer at the same time. A while later we have to stop one more time when I almost steer us into the shore, but I'm making progress.

Eventually we make it up to start. A wave of nervousness hits me as I look at the other crews. It's a mix of high school, college, and club crews and I'm sure that everyone else has much more experiance. No longer am I thinking about winning or placing, now I just want to be able to finish the race without hitting anything or going off the course.

We start off strong. I'm suprised at the stroke rate. It's a lot higher than it was rowing up, but I adjust. I've started to get the hang of looking over my shoulder, steering, and rowing at the same time. The first turn goes pretty well. There's a boat in front of us that looks like we'll be able to pass it. The next turn comes and we creep up on it even more. In the straightaway we pull ahead. I see it's number 455. We're 458. There's a turn about 500 meters ahead and I try and cut across the river in order to get the tightest turn possible, but my calculations are off and I cut too far. We lose precious ground and time. Ana catches a crab and the boat we just passed rows on by us as we stop so she can get her oar back to normal.

We start rowing again and soon are even with 455 again. They yell at us to give way, but we're pulling ahead of them and they also have plenty of room. Behind us I see two boats collide oars and don't feel as bad about 455.

The next turn isn't as close as I want and I'm afraid we lost ground on it until I see another turn ahead and realize that if I'd cut the last turn tighter, then we'd be in a bad position for the next turn. As it is we're in a pretty good position. Things are going fairly well. The set and power are better than I expected.

400 meters from the finish my hands suddenly feel like they are on fire. It's the searing pain I recognize as raw skin rubbing against my oar handle. My body screams for me to let go of the oar, but I push on. The finish is just ahead.

I yell 10 more strokes and start to count them off, but it only takes 6 before we cross the finish line. I look down at my hands and find them stained black from the oar and see a piece of skin hanging off my finger where a blister formed and popped. Underneath it's red and raw. I have 3 other new blisters that are still intact. Gripping the oar lightly we row to the docks and collapse. It's all over.

When the results come back we find that we got 3rd place out of 16. Not bad for a boat with three of the rowers who have never raced in a quad, and one rower who has not only not raced in a quad for a year, but also never steered one. I was very happy.