Finals

Well, I just had my first final exam.  I will be done with them and leaving VT on next Wednesday, but until then, I'll be alternately buried in notes, trying to relax, or trying to pack.  Wish me luck!

I'm still alive!

I just got off of spring break, which, while relaxing, was not long enough.  I didn't accomplish all that I wanted to.  But oh well.  I'm kind of happy to get back on my normal schedule, even though it is crazy.  I love my major, I love VT, and I don't like sitting around doing nothing.

I should mention some awesome stuff:

-Before Spring Break, my parents visited.  (Yay!)  We got to see Kirk Franklin live in Burruss Hall.  Which was amazing.
-I, the person who never seems to care about movies at all, watched three movies over break.  One was WALL-E, of course.  My favorite actually-a-movie movie.  Another was the 5-hour-long 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice, which was also amazing (though it was originally a miniseries and is not technically a movie movie).  (It is definitely worth watching all 5 hours of it.  If it weren't for all the time it would take up, I would wish more movies were longer; it lets one get to know the characters and the setting better.)  And my parents and I went to see Race to Witch Mountain, which was exciting.  And <spoiler alert!> the dog didn't die!</spoiler alert>

Anyway, now that the break is over, I have to actually prepare for class and stuff.  And I can't sleep in as late as I want tomorrow.  So... back to the homework!

Endlich eine Deutschnebenfachin!

I finally declared my German minor!  Right after the German class during which I spent the entire time with a low blood sugar.  It wasn't one of those nice low blood sugars either; it was one of those that makes me get all emotional about everything and starts me crying.  Thankfully, my professor and classmates are awesome.  One even brought me a bottle of orange juice, and a couple asked me what they could do if that happened in the future.  (I did tell my professor about my diabetes, by the way, so she knew at least some of what was going on.)

Anyway, just thought I should share that.  Yay German minor!

I can do it!

I woke up this morning with vestiges of the bad mood I had yesterday (completely unrelated to the Super Bowl).  I'm stressed.  I didn't get as much homework done as I should have.

Somehow, during breakfast, I heard the strains of "Don't Stop Believin'" in the dining hall.  It got stuck in my head.  I like that song's chorus.  It reminds me that there is hope.  God has a plan, and it involves this homework.  And I can do it.  And I can avoid the distractions; I can ignore those little online flash games calling for me to come play them if I really want to get this stuff done.  Because somehow, the ability to solve differential equations or take partial derivatives will be important someday.

I won't stop believing.

(Sorry if I got that stuck in your head, by the way.)

I am seriously grinning like crazy right now

I am a total nerd.

I am excited because the copy of Unten am Fluss I ordered from Amazon came in.  That's the German edition of Watership Down, which is an amazing book, if you've ever read it.  If not, go to the library or bookstore and go buy it.  It's a classic.

I still have to finish my German copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone before I let myself read this one, though.  For some reason, that's taking me quite a while.  I'm just busy *coughhomeworkandclassescough*, even during the times in which I usually read.  I'll get there, though.  I will get there.

Anyway.  I have to do a German blog post now.  Oh, so much to do before I can relax for the weekend...

I'm still excited!

Thanks for Asking...

Yeah, yeah.  I'll get back to my breakfast and homework in just a second.  But this just made me laugh, even though I know it was sent out in all seriousness and that a lot of guys would be interested.  (Please keep in mind that I am a woman.)

My email inbox, as of a minute ago:  "Would you like to become a part of [the] only all male engineering fraternity on the Virginia Tech campus?"


Um. 


No thanks.  


(Disclaimer:  There is a Greek women in engineering organization here.  But I have enough on my plate.)


EDIT:  I just got some emails mentioning said women's engineering sorority, just to be fair.  They too went to the entire listserv.  

Settling In

This is my second week of classes for the semester.  I already feel as if I have been here for a long time, though different things keep reminding me that I'm not actually into a routine yet, such as certain classes not starting until this week or even next week.  (I'm looking at you, Physics lab.)  But that's ok.  For instance, since the start of my physics recitation has been postponed until next week, I plan to take a nap today.  Which will be awesome and much appreciated by my brain, but not too good for me getting used to things.

I'll get used to it eventually.  I am planning to do some things differently this semester, though.  Last semester, I procrastinated.  A lot.  You know those really fun flash games?  I wish I could install selective parental controls on my computers so I could block those, because they are really good at keeping me from doing actual work.  And falling asleep while reading my textbooks is something I want to stop as well.  I probably could use the sleep, but not while I'm trying to learn the fundamentals of engineering, thank you.  And I want to do the whole "get the homework done the day it's assigned" thing.  I've been trying it so far this semester, and it is indeed nice to get things out of the way.

So that is part of my new-semester resolution.  I guess new-year resolution, too, since it is in fact a new year, but since anyone who wanted to do a New-Year's blog post would have done it on, oh, I dunno, New Year's  Day, I'm being different.

Well, I said I would stop procrastinating.  I guess that means that I should actually eat this muffin I bought instead of letting it sit on the table here while I blog.  Oh, the irony!

Dexcom Trial

I usually don't do much blogging about my diabetes, so this post is very different from my others.  Beware of the diabetic lingo!

Anyway, I finally just finished doing something I've been wanting to do for a while:  try out a Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGMS).  CGMS's approximate one's blood sugar every minute or so (time period depends on the model), but since the method CGMS's use to approximate blood sugar is not quite as accurate as a normal blood glucose test, some normal blood glucose tests are still neccessary to calibrate the CGMS and to verify unsavory blood sugar results before treating them.  CGMS's are useful for predicting high and low blood sugars, though, and they show trends very well on pretty little graphs so one can see the effects of one's eating, bolusing, and exercising habits on one's blood sugar.

After I mentioned to my endocrinologist that I wanted a trial, she reccomended I go to a local Inova branch, where the insulin pump/CGMS trainer would set me up with a loaner.  The trainer, who also trained me on my very first insulin pump trial about seven years ago, was very helpful and friendly.  She inserted the sensor, and it barely hurt—no more than a good infusion site insertion, I'm happy to report.  Since she wasn't allowed to loan out the Navigator (the CGMS I want) because it is so new, I got hooked up to a Dexcom Seven, just to let me see what using a CGMS is like in general.  I had thankfully already accepted the fact that I would feel like even more of a cyborg than usual, so with that hurdle out of the way, I was ready to give this a good shot.

The Dexcom Seven CGMS I used, shortly after pulling out the sensor.

The first twenty-four hours were only moderately accurate.  After the initial calibration, the Dexcom showed me trends pretty well.  To turn the Dexcom's reported numbers into my actual blood sugar readings, however, one would have to add about 30 mg/dL to each one.  It kept vibrating and beeping at me to tell me that I was below 40 mg/dL when I was between 70 and 80 mg/dL.  It kept that up for a couple of hours, at which point I was almost in tears.  I wanted to bring my blood sugar up so I could go to sleep without going low during the night, so I was eating some carbs to bring my BG up, but I was pretty scared that the Dexcom would keep me up all night, telling me I was low.  Argh.

Eventually, my numbers came up, I went to sleep, and life was good.  The Dexcom started looking like it was getting more useful and accurate readings around 2 or 3 PM the next day, and as long as I calibrated it when my blood sugar was relatively stable, it stayed about as accurate as it could be (there is a bit of a delay between traditional blood sugar tests and CGMS readings).  It caught several lows and highs during the nights of the week I used it, which was very useful.  Really, no diabetic likes waking up low at 3 AM.  Or waking up to the alarm clock each morning, testing, seeing a low result, and wondering how long they had been that low; that's just plain scary sometimes!  Thank you, Dexcom, for sparing me of that for a week.

On the con side, those late-night lows were annoying, and since the Dexcom alarms every 15 minutes if one's blood sugar is still below target, sometimes I got to sit around for a while to make sure my blood sugar was stable and high enough for me to sleep.  Better than waking up extremely low and discombobulated at the normal time, though.

Today, when I had to take the Dexcom off to give it back to Inova, I was kind of sad.  This device had been my constant companion for a week, watching my blood sugars even when I normally would not.  Watching the trends has been enlightening, and I'm sure I will do things a bit differently in my bolusing now.  I am even more certain now that I want to get my own CGMS.  I am fairly sure my parents' insurance will pay for it (Thank you!).  Now I just need to get started with that lovely pile of paperwork.  But for the safety factor I have appreciated for the past week, I think it will be worth the hand cramps of signing my name a few gillion times.

=D

Merry Late Christmas, everyone! I always miss holiday posts or manage to post something silly, don't I? Of course, I'm sure you read about my mom's and my extremely exciting Christmas Day here (and if you didn't, you should, hint hint). My mom gives me waaaaaay too much credit. I'm just glad I could help and that we made it to Texas safely.

We finally got around to opening presents on the 26th, since my mom and I were too exhausted from flying. It was fun, as opening presents always is. I also got to show my grandparents the tablet Virginia Tech's Engineering department requires me to use. It is a laptop computer, but one can write on the screen using a special stylus. To make that easier, the display of the laptop turns around and flips down so one can use it as a clipboard or make writing while at a desk easier.

After I showed them my tablet and told them about the amazing opportunities they had, my granddad left for a moment. Us girls kept talking, and my mom told me to pull up RoMeLa's website so I could show them what I was getting involved with. Just as I was returning from the computer room, my granddad was back, carrying a long rectangular leather case. Since my mom had mentioned that my granddad was planning to show me his slide rules at some point, I had an idea of what was in that case. My face lit up, and he showed me a little of how to work it. He unfortunately can't remember all of it, but he's worked hard. He deserves a break.

So, while everyone was watching the news that night, I dug around on the interwebs to learn how to use my newly-inherited Pickett N4-ES. It was apparently the TI-89 of slide rules back in his day (for those not familiar with Texas Instruments' lineup, it's a crazy-awesome calculator that can do a lot of stuff). I'm still learning how to use the N4-ES, but I plan to keep going. I can multiply, divide, and do exponents now. I still plan to use my TI-89 for my math classes, especially since I think my professors would not appreciate me using a non-calculator during tests, but I am still just blown away that I get to now learn how to use a slide rule. Especially one I inherited from an engineer I admire very much. Thank you so much, Granddad! I love it!

Yay!

Today was a really good day.  My roommate for next academic year and I just signed a pre-lease on a nice apartment that is really close to campus.  (Yeah, in Blacksburg, if you need an apartment for school, you gotta sign early.  There's a little bit of a housing crunch, and while there are some spots for second-, third-, and fourth-years in the residence halls, there's not much.  Housing isn't guaranteed after your freshman year, so many just move off their second year.  Every upperclassman I have talked to said that if you don't sign early, you have to hope the housing lottery is in your favor, or else you might end up in a not-so-desirable apartment.)  Anyway, I'm very happy about that.

Annnnnd... I just took my last exam!  I'm done for the semester!

I'm also required to leave 24 hours after my last exam, so I'd better finish packing.  So... Northern VA, see you soon.

Update on My Life, Which Is About to be Inundated by Final Exams. Yay.

Hi, everyone!

I got a haircut over Thanksgiving break.  I love it.  Having short hair is so much easier, and it was long enough to donate, too.  Here I am, dressed up for the Cru Holliball.  Rockin' short hair.

And this is me over Thanksgiving Break.

In other news, my parents just sent me several care packages.  So, in addition to being inundated by finals, I am also inundated by food.  Yay food!  Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Anyway, I probably won't be posting much until my finals are done.  I have six, if I counted correctly, only one of which I have already taken.  I'm not super worried about any of them, but studying is better than not studying, so I'm going to go study now.

Merry Christmas, everyone!  (Or ChristmaHannuKwanzakah, if you prefer.  I'm not sure I spelled that right...)

Blacksburg is Beautiful

I love it here at Virginia Tech for so many reasons.  I'm getting an amazing education, there are oodles of opportunities, and there are lots of great people here.  And it's pretty.  I've been acting like a tourist these past few weeks, whipping out my camera every time I passed a pretty tree.  These are a few of my favorite pictures.  

The Newman Library, with trees.  Hokiestone and fall leaves contrast nicely, don't they?

One of my favorite parts about being a Hokie is that the trees get in on the act too.  These trees decided to line up in order of color darkness, and I thought it was cool.  And they're orange and maroon.

 

This is a tree just outside the Architecture Annex, aka the old Blacksburg High School way back when.  

  

Same tree.  It's huge.  

 

I love how this tree looks, with all of those wispy stems.  And Slusher Tower, the tallest building in the town of Blacksburg, in the background.  I live in Slusher Wing, which is attached but much shorter.  

Who knew I would pass a holly tree?  Just in time for the Christmas season, too! 

 

Those aren't leaves.  They're berries.  So cool, so strikingly pretty. 

A tree showing off on the Drillfield.  If you squint and look close enough, a bit of Torgerson Bridge is in the back.  

But most of these pictures were taken several days or maybe even a week or two ago.  Most of the leaves are fallen now.  But there is new outdoor eye-candy...

Yep, that's snow.  Taken from my dorm room window.  You can see tracks where people opted to sled (close to midnight, too; these people are snow enthusiasts).  You might even be able to see the snow angels.  

Looks aren't everything, and even if Blacksburg were an ugly town, I would still love Virginia Tech.  But I do appreciate this icing on the cake.  This heaping tower of extremely beautiful icing.

Bad analogy.  Bad.  Sit.  Stay.  

Oh man, how could I forget...

It's World Diabetes Day!  If it were earlier in the morning and I had remembered to post, I might have suggested you wear blue to show support.  But unfortunately I have been crazy busy.  Classes are almost over for the semester, but right now it is the final crunch.  The end of finals is slightly more than a month away.

Anyway, check out the website:  http://www.worlddiabetesday.org/

Sorry about the lack of posts lately, by the way.  Hopefully when things calm down soon I will post more.

It's Diabetes Awareness Month

I just saw that on Kerri's blog that it is Diabetes Awareness month.  And I missed the day to blog about my diabetes (yesterday)(oops!), but that's ok.

I kind of feel like I should commemorate this.  Maybe I can use it as a catalyst to get the Virginia Tech dining halls to post nutrition facts information (sometimes it is hard to tell how carbariffic some of the foods here are...). How will I do that?  No idea.  Maybe there's a website for it or something already.  I just haven't found it yet.  Any ideas?

Fireworks!

Why fireworks?

We just won another football game 23:13!  I unfortunately didn't get to watch it in person, but maybe that was better.  When I'm in the stadium, I'm just staring at guys running around on the grass.  When watching games on TV, the commentators help me know who is doing what, since I don't know many of the players' numbers or much about football in general.  I still didn't have a complete idea of what was going on, but it helped.

Anyway.  I'm tired.

I voted!

I voted for the first time!  This is exciting.  Finally, after watching my parents hit the big red VOTE button for so many years, I can finally make my own voice heard.

I would have put a picture of me wearing my awesome "I Voted" sticker here, using my tablet's handy built-in webcam, but I figure you all either know what it looks like or you should go vote and get your own.  So go vote!

Wow, I actually did something Halloween related! And it was awesome. Thanks, D!

I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I would say what I did on Saturday night.  So, here we go.

One of my best friends in high school, D, decided to go to UVA instead of Virginia Tech.  She really seems to love it there.  One thing I did not expect was that she would somehow get interested in swing dancing.  But she did.

Virginia Tech's Swing Dance club decided to hold a Halloween party the day after Halloween, and they invited the UVA Swing Dance club to come to it.  D decides to go and emails me about it.  We're both excited, but I don't dance, so we decide to hang out, and I thought I might just go sit and watch everyone dancing.

That worked for about half a song.

Anyway.  D and I meet up, and we are both ecstatic to see each other.  She and I get supper, as neither of us has eaten yet, and we sit and talk for a while, just catching up on everything that wouldn't fit in our emails.  Then we head to the dance, where she says no one will mind if I watch, or I could try dancing if I want.  She dances a bit, and I can tell she's enjoying it.  D really is a great dancer.

I'm sure you can see where this is going.  I ended up dancing.  Very badly, but several of the guys with whom I danced were very good dancers and did not mind giving on-the-spot lessons.  Most of them were pretty nice about me having no idea what I was doing, and I had a lot of fun.  And my calves were aching a bit afterward.  Yay exercise!

I had been kind of thinking about maybe getting involved in the Ballroom Dancing club here, and now I think I just might.  Swing dancing was a lot of fun.  (Yeah, they're pretty different.  But I feel more drawn to ballroom for some reason.  And there's no reason I can't learn both, either.  Except time constraints.)  Or maybe the Swing dancing club is more for me.  We'll see; I'm still planning to wait until next semester so I don't have to go to a lesson only to have to study for finals afterward.

Well, D, you might have gotten me hooked.  You are a fantastic dancer.  As always, it was great to see you and hang out!  And thank you for letting me crash the dance party.  I had a blast!

Test tonight! Dun dun DUN!

I have my second big Engineering Explorations test tonight.  I've been studying quite a bit, so I feel pretty prepared.  One thing I am not going to let happen this test is to let the nervousness of everyone else taking the test make me nervous.  Last time, I went in confident, sat down, and then there was some confusion with filling out our Opscans.  (I've grown up; those are called ScanTrons in elementary-high school, but Opscans here, for the most part).  Plus, people were talking about how much they studied and how much they wished they had studied more, etc.  I started to freak out and wasn't as focused for the test as I could have been.  In comparison, over the summer when I did the Student Transition Engineering Program, I went into our tests feeling confident, ignored other people's worries, and took the tests.  The first time, I got 94%.  The second time?  99%.  Of course, there was less pressure since those grades did not count, but still, if I can maintain the same attitude, I will probably be fine.

After the test, though, I get to watch a movie.  S was telling me last night how a certain friend of hers had never seen a certain movie, and I got a funny look on my face.  I think she noticed it, and then proceeded to ask whether I had seen it.  I said no; I always seem to be the person who has never seen any movie ever.  She got excited and said I have to go watch it with her and her friend.  I would usually avoid things on Thursday nights due to Stammtisch and Campus Crusade for Christ, but I'm not going to Stammtisch because it is right before my test, and Cru tonight is pretty much out of the question, since this test runs an hour and a half, which means it has more questions.  And that it ends at 8:30, 30 minutes after Cru begins.  So now I have a movie to look forward to.

In other news, I'm trying to think of non-orange and maroon Christmas/holiday gifts for my friends.  I think I'm the only one out of my little friend groups to come to VT, so I don't think the people going to UVA and Hollins and Mary Washington and other schools would appreciate orange and maroon.  Any ideas?  Especially for a college student on a budget?

Dorm Cookin', Part 2

Well, I tried to make the Macaroni and Cheese again, and with much more success.  First tip:  don't try to be fancy and melt little strings of mozzarella string cheese over this macaroni and cheese.  That probably accounted for a bit of the funny taste the first time around.  This time was much better.

And since my last foray into the dorm cooking world, I have acquired a glass bowl from a large superstore entity.  It cost less than four dollars, is pretty sturdy, and is just the right size.  The right size for the macaroni and cheese, you ask?  No, it is the right size so that when the water boils and the foam begins to rise ominously towards the top of the container, I can leave it for a few more seconds.  Last time, I made the macaroni in a one-cup measuring cup, and I'm sure my neighbors wanted to unplug the microwave after hearing "hrrrrrrmmmmm....." (that's the microwave) "Oh, drat!  Not again!"  (that's me) *shunk of opening the microwave door**stirring**shunk of closing the microwave door* *beep* (turning microwave back on) "hrrrrrrrmmmmmmm......" (microwave, again) "Oh, drat, not again!"... I'm sure you can see where this is going.  This time, all was well.  The only mistake was getting barmops at said large superstore entity instead of proper drying towels.  The barmops are good for leaving stuff out to dry on, but they do a halfhearted job of drying the dishes and leave little fuzzy bits behind.  Oh well; I'll know for later.

In other news, I just discovered that the forks I brought (donated by my awesome Mom) can be used on my tablet's trackpad instead of my finger.  (Don't worry; it was clean and the computer and fork are both just fine.)  Not that I'll make a regular practice of that, but it's good to know.  Just in case I have to... use a fork to move my computer's mouse.  How useful.  That should be the method of saving the world in a movie someday... it's pretty epic!

Well, I should get to that German homework I have to do.  I get to write a review of Goodbye, Lenin.

Chef Laura signing off!  Until next time!

Yay! And, housing arrangements.

I got to spend yesterday and the day before with my oh-so-awesome parents.  They are probably home right now, asleep and tired from the car trip, but I'm glad they came, despite the (non)-fun of long car rides.  We hung out, shopped, talked, saw Wall·E, saw 1964:  The Tribute performed in Virginia Tech's own Burruss Hall (which was a LOT of fun; I haven't seen my parents both singing along with music at a concert until last night), and just generally had fun.  It was awesome.  It was only icing on the cake that they brought me food, a suitcase (to make coming home for breaks easier), and other stuff.  Thank you, Mom and Dad!  xoxo!

We also discussed something very important:  where I am going to live next year.  I have to decide before Winter Break whether I am moving off campus next academic year or not, so my parents, S (the fellow woman engineering student with whom I will more than likely be rooming; she's awesome), and I met and talked apartments.  S had obviously done much more research than I had had time to do, so she knew most of the details about housing around here and had already focused on a couple nice apartment complexes.  We both want a quiet community, and we both miss having the privacy of our own rooms (or at least a near 100% guarantee that there will be somewhere in our living space where we can "recharge" alone, as we are both introverted).  We discussed stuff we need to be sure to ask while taking tours of the candidates, and we will be working on priority lists for what we can't live without soon (aka as soon as I get my dormwork done, I'm doing mine).  However, I don't think we've entirely removed the possibility of staying on campus.  But, if we do go off, Virginia Tech has an excellent bus system, and most of the apartments we are looking at are within easy walking distance too.  I wouldn't have to drive unless I had a giant tri-fold board or prototype model to transport, pretty much.

But Virginia Tech is having a bit of a housing crunch.  More and more incoming freshmen means less and less upperclassmen housing, so we may be "strongly encouraged" to do our bit to help next year's freshmen not have to live in study lounges or room with RA's (because some, over halfway into the semester, are still being forced to do that!)  I've been thinking about the possibility of going off campus for a while, and while it is nice to live right in the middle of everything, it would also be nice to have a room or quiet space of my own, and to live with someone with a similar sleep pattern.

Anyway, if anyone has any sage advise for apartment hunting or a definite reason to stay on or go off campus, please let me know.  I would definitely appreciate it, especially since I don't know everything involved or what to take into consideration.