Mom's Present

From my last post, the world now knows that Wednesday was my mom's birthday. My dad and I decided on a joint present, at least in a way. He had the idea and bought the present, and for my part, I baked my mom's cake and offered to set the present up.

I started grinning like mad when the majestic stainless steel and glossy white robotic stork gently set the box wrapped in silk on the doorstep very friendly UPS delivery woman appeared at the door and had me sign for the cardboard box she said was from Apple. That's right—it's a brand new computer; the white MacBook, to be exact.

So, today I will be setting it up. My mom must have thought I was crazy when I called her today at work and asked to make absolutely sure she didn't mind missing the initial setup, her new computer's first startup and first time connecting to the internet, etc. But I already knew I was crazy, so that's ok. She said she doesn't mind.

Mom, I hope you enjoy your new MacBook. You are an amazingly patient person, especially if you can stand the constant appearance of the spinning beach ball on your iBook G3. But hopefully that won't be a problem anymore, or at least not until your '09 MacBook can be considered "vintage."

I love you, Mom! Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

<3<3<3<3<3<#<3<3<3<3<3

Congrats on another year!  (And on discovering Hampsterdance, too!)

Happy Mother's Day!

I love you, Mom!  Thank you for everything, and have a very happy Mother's Day!

<3<3<#<3<3

Yay Mom! And: Medical Stuff.

First of all, thank you so much for all of you who have been praying for my mom.  Her surgery went really well, praise the Lord, and while I'd like to let her blog about the details if she feels so inclined, I will say that the awesome surgeons cleared the blocked artery and put in "the Cadillac of Stents."  Yay insurance!  She is tired but doing well, and her email was especially coherent for someone who just had heart surgery the day before.

But, of course, tons of other things have to happen at the same time as this.

I got a large box in the mail today that contains my new Freestyle Navigator.  For those of you who don't know what that is, it is a continuous glucose monitor, like the Dexcom  I blogged about a while back.  It's a bit different, and it has a few more features (though apparently the Dexcom Plus has those now) that I like.  I've been told not to start using it until I am trained, so I will be eagerly awaiting a call from my trainer.  On a slightly different note, I would like to very much thank my insurance company for covering the Nav and other CGMSs.  I am very grateful to have insurance that understands that progress and new technology are themselves medically necessary and is willing to support them and help keep its patients healthy.

I am very sad, though about this.  I found out here.  For those of you who don't click on links, those basically say that my pump manufacturer, Smiths Medical, is pulling out of the diabetes market.  My pump has a little over three years on the warranty, I think, but I will have to get a new pump from a different company then.  Smiths Medical is slowly withdrawing, meaning that they will be gone in about four years, when the warranties for the newest pumps expire.  I can still get infusion sets and replacement pumps if mine breaks, but I can't renew my warranty, and that makes me sad.  I love the Cozmo and the Cozmore System.  It has so many amazingly brilliant features, and I must admit I will miss being able to test my blood sugar directly on my pump.  I'll start doing my research, I guess.  Smiths Medical/Deltec, thank you for the amazing customer service, the amazing system, and all the support and amazing features.  I will miss you.

Well, there's tons of other fun stuff going on as well.  Such as that Multivariable Calc test tomorrow.  (I am purposely not opening the Navigator to stare at it in wonderment and gleeful awe until after said test...)

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!

Happy Birthday!

 

Source 

Happy Birthday, Dad!  I wish I could be home to give you presents and hugs and just hang out!  I hope you had a good day.  Enjoy the cake!  Hopefully yours is much chocolatier than this one.

I love you, Dad!  <3
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo!

=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!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  There are so many things for which I am thankful.

Although I'm not going to list them here, since the Aggies vs. Longhorns game just started.  Gig 'em, Aggies!

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.

Brr.

It's cold here.

Except indoors.

Slusher Wing, along with most of the other buildings here, is very good at retaining heat, and that seems to mean that the radiators have to come on in order to make it even hotter.  Right now, the thermostat in my room says it is about 78 degrees F in here.  That is perfectly fine with me, though.  When I'm just sitting around doing stuff and not doing any kind of exercise, I love it.  I always seem to be cold, so it is kind of nice being the perfect temperature for a change.  It gets uncomfortably hot when one of my laptops has been on my lap for a while, or I come in from walking from class outside with a coat on.  But right now, it's perfect.

But my sense of logic says that that makes no sense.  I think it makes perfect sense to say "I would rather be cold, because you can always put on another layer of clothing, whereas when you are hot, there is only so much clothing you can take off and go out in public," but for some reason, I like being on the warm side of room temperature.  Unless it gets up to heatstroke levels and I can't get out of the sun for a long time, I'm quite happy being hot.  (I'll probably alter my opinion when it gets warm again, though!)  Being cold?  I can't stand it.

Oh, and when I download my camera's pictures eventually, maybe I'll remember to post the first frost I've seen this academic year, taken early in the morning sometime this past week.

So, to my lovely parents who will be visiting this weekend:   Bring a coat.

A fire drill at a normal time? No way!

#6, and yes way.  We had the sixth fire drill of the year at about 12:45.  It was COLD.  But at least it was not at 2 AM.

I wouldn't be surprised if it frosts soon, though.  I keep forgetting to pull out either of my warm coats, though, since the dorm is very good at retaining heat AND they turned the radiators on.  I was considering changing into a t-shirt earlier before I turned the fan on.

Ok, enough ranting.  Back to homework.

BTW, I can't wait to see my parents this weekend!  Major <3!

Fall Break!

Today is the official start of Fall Break (aka we get today and today only off of school).  A lot of people on my hall went home, and while that would have been nice, I felt that driving ten hours round trip would take too much of a giant chunk out of the weekend for me to really be able to enjoy the weekend at home.  I want to be able to go home, shop, hang out with my parents, hang out with friends, play with Radar, sleep in my own bed, get a haircut… and one weekend wouldn't cut it, or at least not this time.  I'm waiting until Thanksgiving, since Virginia Tech is nice enough to give us a week off plus weekends.  Plus, I'll get to see my awesome parents on Parents Weekend, for which I am very excited.  So I'm saving gas and staying here right now.

By the way, to all of you fashion-conscious people:  I want my hair cut short, but I'm not sure what I want done with it.  If you have any suggestions (shorter than shoulder length), please tell me.  I want it short, easy to maintain, and cute, but I'm not sure what I can get away with with my crazy hair.  (humidity = frizz)

Well, I'm probably going to go try out Crumb and Get It pretty soon.  It's like Coldstone ice cream, but with cookies.  Very excited.  I've decided to try out the local off-campus cuisine this weekend.  So… I should go do that.  Yeah.

In the meantime, does anyone want to make any guesses as to how many fire drills I will have this month?  No prizes if you guess right, but the knowledge that you won, of course, is always a terriffic prize.  I'm guessing five.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Aunt G! And Happy (two days ago) Birthday, Hol!
I love you guys!

I'm sorry!

Man, I feel terrible. Last night, here in Blacksburg, we got some drizzles, probably from Hanna. But on Pig Song I have just learned that, in Herndon, there has been a lot of rain the past few hours, and my (home)(where my parents still live all year) basement flooded. And I was cheering my head off at a football game with wonderful weather, hoping my parents were watching as well. It didn't occur to me that they would be bailing out our basement. Again. I'm sorry! Please pray for them.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yes, it's late. But happy Thanksgiving anyway! I ate waaaay too much good food today. We shared thanksgiving with a couple of families; one we were friends with, and the other we just met today. (Both are very nice.) I hope everyone enjoyed their meals, etc as much as I did!

Today reminds me of how much I am thankful for. Of course, since it is Thanksgiving, but also that I have so very much to be thankful for. I have more than I need of everything, a lot of what I want, I'm healthy, I'm getting to think about my future. I live in a country of freedom, and so many brave men and women are overseas fighting to defend us. And most important are friends, family, and God and the sacrifice he made to save me. I could easily go on. If I wrote everything I could be thankful for, Blogger would have to block my account so I wouldn't flood their servers.

After we got home from our thanksgiving linner (lunch + dinner), Thanksgiving didn't feel done. Since we all have the day off tomorrow, we decided to watch some DVDs my dad had (especially after going to the grocery store to rent Rattatoille and finding out it had just closed. Oh well. Those poor employees deserve to go home early—especially after working on a very family-oriented holiday.). On those DVDs were two episodes of The Prisoner and Stephane Grappelli. Now, the main question: Does anyone have a box set of The Prisoner I can borrow (or at least the first couple of episodes, so I get more than just the intro montage of background information)? It was really funny. (Okay, no one has to lend me their stuff. I'll track it down eventually.)

Enjoy the last couple hours of your Turkey Day!

*Happy Dance*

Happy extremely belated Halloween! I'll post pictures of what I did later.

This past weekend, I got to visit Virginia Tech again, this time for a special open house/fall review program. There was an option to send in my application with my Open House/Fall Review registration, and if I did so, I would find out on the last day of the open house whether I got into Tech. So I did.

So, technically, the Fall Review part (the send-in-your-application-early part) was for minorities. Those of you who know me personally know I am as caucasian as it gets (not that skin color matters). However, I did a camp a couple of years ago for teenage girls interested in majoring in engineering. In engineering, women of any kind are minorities; I believe the ratio of men to women, on average, is something like five to one. In some fields, there are even fewer women. So technically, in engineering, I am a minority.

Virginia Tech hosted us fairly well (as opposed to our hotel, which kept us waiting for our room for a while)(but thankfully the receptionist was really nice). We had a nice buffet dinner before listening to a speaker or two and a panel of students who answered questions. The next day was the official everyone-can-come open house, and there were info sessions about different majors and the different colleges. Then came lunch.

And then we found out. Each person who had submitted his or her application early was called up individually and given a letter. We were all told to not open our letters until we got home (Dad told me to open it in the car.). After the letters were handed out, we left.

I opened my letter a few minutes after getting into the car. I had been a bit worried about my application; you always realize what you should have done in hindsight.

But I got in anyway. Dad was happy, and I called Mom and told her the news. It feels so good to know I'm already accepted to one school (the one I'll probably end up going to, no less). And this isn't early decision; it is non-binding. I can shop around. There are two or three more schools I want to apply to, but knowing I don't have to apply to a safety school will save some time.

Everytime I start thinking about college and my future career, I get excited. *mental happy dance*

I'm back!

…sans four teeth. Of course, that's fine, seeing as that was exactly what was supposed to happen. My wisdom teeth would have otherwise redesigned my entire mouth's layout, precipitating a need for me to get braces. I've never had them and plan to keep it that way. I'm feeling surprisingly good today. There's a bit of dull pain where the teeth came out and I look a little like a chipmunk, but I've been acting almost normal for several hours. Thanks, Mom, for all of the pudding! Although I managed to eat soup for dinner, so I'm making progress. Oh, and I just ate some chocolate. Bar chocolate. Chocoholism will get me back onto solid foods.

And I can feel my lower lip and tounge now. When I came to after the surgery (I did not wake up in the middle, praise the Lord) I wondered why they had wrapped my tounge in an inch of gauze and left something weird sticking out of my mouth. I soon learned that my tounge was not wrapped in gauze—it was only two gauze pads between my upper and lower jaws to catch the blood and facilitate clotting—and that the weird thing coming out of my mouth was my lower lip. Both were numb for a few hours, which I spent reading, doing German homework, and watching Homestar Runner on DVD. And napping, And changing the gauze pads. I'm glad I'm done with those. ***knocks on wood*** They're gross.

And somehow, I managed to bring my blood sugar in at 166. I feel sorry for poor Glee, though. I accidentally corrected my blood sugar to 120 instead of 150 right before I went to sleep, so she had to keep coming into my room, testing me, setting temporary basal rates to get me up higher, etc. Thanks, Mom!

Anyway, I need sleep. Thank you all for your prayers! Everything went fine. I just hope life returns to normal soon. Though I do like the whole veg-out-in-front-of-computer/TV-with-book-close-at-hand-eating-chocolate-pudding-and-ice-cream thing. I'll enjoy what I can while I can.

Man. The spell checker still doesn't work. Bad Google/Blogger! Bad! Bad doggie!

I was tagged for this meme a while ago…

I was tagged by Hol&J for this meme a few days over a month ago. And I'm finally getting around to it.

7-10 Things You Don't Already Know About Me:

1. Improper grammar drives me nuts. Though I know I use bad grammar occasionally, I will correct the other people's grammar. When I turn in tests at school, there are usually a few editing marks on the questions where I corrected subject-verb agreement or pronouns. I don't feel like I can concentrate otherwise.

2. I like hats. Weird hats. Santa hats especially—I used to wear them year-round (around the house, at least). I even have a black beanie-like hat with cat ears that one of my friends made. (Really, it's too loose to be a beanie. But it's really cute. Thanks, M!)

3. I talk to myself. I know it looks weird, but I do anyway. No voices in my head—I just converse with myself. It helps me think.

4. I have been a self-proclaimed geek as long as I knew what a geek was. I think that was when my computer was my second hand-me-down computer from my dad—an Apple Quadra. (I think the term Macintosh was in use then, but I don't remember.) I like being geeky.

5. I still sleep with a stuffed animal. It is a dragon puppet named Amis. (Another character from that now-defunct fantasy novel I mentioned in an earlier post.) Okay, so most of my family knows this. But I bet none of you knew how to spell his name!

6. Nonproductivity drives me nuts. That's probably why I stay up so late. And I actually enjoy school to some extent. I get to learn stuff. During the summer, I will be working, reading, learning more German, and teaching myself UNIX. And doing summer assignments. And maybe starting a murder mystery novel that will most likely also find its way into the shiny Trash icon on my Mac's Dock.

7. Speaking of my love of learning (how many teenagers will admit to that?), I enjoy learning to speak with different accents. I can currently fake a moderately-decent British accent, a Southern drawl, and a few squeaky weird voices. I can occasionally do others as well, but those are my favorites.

8. I used to dislike Harry Potter. Around the fourth book, I decided the plot was getting repetitive and boring. I didn't read books five and six until a couple of months ago! I still think the plotlines are repetitive, but at least I enjoy them. And I'm glad I came to my senses before HP7! Now I can go to the midnight release and everything!

Okay, I think I'm done. I started this post before I left for Germany in June, but I knew it needed editing. You can't have all my secrets!

Awwwww…

Short post today. I have my German final exam tomorrow, and while I'm not worried, I'd like some sleep.

Anyway, Radar had to have surgery again. He had to have his right leg's ACL fixed up a few months ago, and the other one decided to get messed up as well. He is doing well. The anesthesia has worn off, and today he hasn't been in much pain. Yesterday, the day we picked him up, he would start whimpering and making squeaky noises whenever his leg started hurting. That, and he was still woozy from the anesthesia and the IV. He has a cast that is multiple inches longer than his tiny little leg (this is a chihuahua, remember) and he has to drag it around, but he's doing well. He made it through one of these already; he's a trained professional. Still, please pray for him!

Tag! I'm It!

My cousin Hol tagged me for the following challenge:
"The rules are simple; give five reasons why you like blogging, and tag other bloggers. No tag backs, but be sure to let them know who tagged you."

<announcer guy>So, without further ado, here's Ky with………
Why! Do! You! Blog! *crowd cheers* </announcer guy>

1. You know that feeling you get when you just experienced something amazing, or horrible, or some other extreme emotion? You just want to share it with somebody. Anybody. And I can do that through blogging, especially if I'm the only one home. I could talk to my dog Radar, but it helps if the receiving end of my story actually knows what I'm saying. Though Radar is extremely cute and sweet.

2. For a while, the main reason I was glad I had a blog was so that I could use it as a travel log. I still like using it to record my adventures. I plan to write about my travels this summer, if that's possible (*singing* going to Germany! w00t w00t w00t). Note to those who click on the link: the posts are mostly very long and they are also in reverse order. Read from the bottom.

3. As a high school student, I get an overdose of logical thinking all day. Even in English class—we learn formulas and specific processes with which to read passages, answer questions, and write essays. (Not math. It's more algorithm-ish.) My blog is my creative outlet. I have long considered myself both a left-brained and a right-brained thinker, and so that one side doesn't get overloaded, the other has to be used sometimes. And since blogging doesn't take that long, I can do it more often than I, say, play around in Photoshop Elements or read. Oh man, I wish I could just read books more. Summer is coming, thank goodness. (And AP Literature and Composition next year, but I don't know about that. There's something about overanalyzing literature that makes most books I read for school incredibly uninteresting. Somehow it managed not to ruin Pride and Prejudice, but the other books have largely been slaughtered by analysis packets and sticky notes. And don't get me started on books that are innately boring *coughAcross Five Aprilsmultipletimesinelementaryschoolcough*)

4. It's a nice break. Before I started blogging, I was working on math homework. (What teacher gives homework before an AP exam most of her class is taking? My math teacher. And several other teachers give homework during the AP-testing weeks. Yuk.) After I got frustrated with partially decomposing fractions (the math classroom was too warm for anyone to do anything except try to stay awake, so hopefully my dad remembers how to partially decompose fractions), I came up here to work on my German project and discovered that I had been tagged. Ahh, break from academia. Sweetness.

5. Blogging gives me a connection with the rest of my family. My parents read my blog, and so does Hol (and I'm assuming that her husband J reads it as well). When I fly off to Germany, my only connections home will be Skype and Burnt Waffles. And with my blog, I don't have to worry about accidentally skyping my parents at two in the morning and missing them completely. Okay, so I could write postcards, but this is so much faster. And I don't have to worry about only having two inches to write in. Nor must I worry that the pretty picture postcard I buy in Germany be mangled and stamped so much by the time it reaches my house the picture is indistinguishable from the messy chickenscratch on the other side.

6. ***Extra Credit!*** My handwriting is moderately bad. On the internet, no one can read your handwriting—because they can't see it! So I don't have to worry about handwritten letters to family being illegible.

Anyway, I’m supposed to tag another blogger. Being a shy person, I’m just going to tag my mom, Glee, of Pig Song. Have fun, Mom! (I hope you love blogging!)