No longer a college student

I have officially graduated and gotten a piece of paper to summarize all my hard work for the past four years.
It is very wierd.

I must say however I would never have made it all the way through without God.

Roommate M to Roommate M's brother-in-law D___ (playing some shooting war video game): Does this mean you are a violent person?

D___: Yes.

Laughter from Roommate M, friend B___, and myself.

D___: What did you want me to say? I play this because I want to hug teddy bears?

More laughter.

Roommate M: Oh! look at that cute teddy bear!




Random conversation which occurred this evening while we were all dying from heat and humidity. Roommate M's brother-in-law D___ is not really a violent person. He just enjoys playing video games. Previous to playing random war shooting game he had been playing online-bridge. Bridge, by the way, is a fascinating game which can bring much enjoyment both to the players and to spectators. We (meaning all us girls...myself, Roommate M, friend B___, and roommate M's sister) watched the bridge playing for a bit, made cookies, and then watched the Wall Street Journal's fashion week videos online which may be considered girly and therefore D___ felt the need to do something manly, I believe.

How to Train Your Dragon

Bestest movie in a bit. It's full of swirling and dipping and flying and it has even got vortices swirling off the dragon's wings! I mean, come on! who wouldn't like a movie where even the vortices produced by wings are portrayed? And the dragons were pretty cute too.

Ahem...or maybe it's only us aero people who've already got our heads in the clouds who enjoy that sort of stuff.

Oh well, I guess normal people will enjoy the cuteness at least. But wow! the clouds and the ocean and the sailing and dipping and soaring! My study buddy for my aero classes and I both wish for dragons now. But we think maybe hang gliding will be a close approximation. Or maybe kite jumping. I want to go kite jumping. I hear it hurts horribly when you land, but you get to sort of fly for a little bit, and anything is worth that.

They mixed up the music a little. They play Celticish music in the background for a bunch of Vikings, except Vikings were more Scandinavian and used to raid the Celtish people. At least, this is what we remember from our history. But it was pretty nice music, nonetheless.

And the dragons were so cute and colorful. And the flying and the soaring and the skimming and the skipping! That's really what this movie is all about. Just flying, you know.

Microgravity and its effects

The effects of microgravity on the human body are quite nasty actually. Do not believe all those science fiction stories where people travel nilly-willy without a thought of bone loss and heart problems and brain changes and gastrointestinal problems. Gravity is far more important in the functionings of our bodies than you might at first think.

So my senior design team is trying to simulate gravity in our project by spinning our station. But then we had to figure out how much spinning the human body could take before getting sick. Try walking around with a slow spinning motion for a bit. You get dizzy after only a short time (I know because I tried).

Anyway, it is most interesting work and way more complicated than we initially thought.

Spring Break

Tuesday night I slept only and half to two hours. During that brief sleep I dreamt that I had gotten stuck in some time warp at some point in my life and became my own grandmother. And then something else happened and I ended up meeting my grandmother self. She was actually a pretty cool lady. Anyway, then my alarm went off. But my grandmother self told me I could set it for ten minutes later and then I would get to sleep for ten extra minutes! I decided my grandmother self was so smart and cool.

My dad's response to me telling him this yesterday: "sounds like you were almost hallucinating. You should definitely get some sleep tonight." So I did, which was good because Tuesday night was not the only night I was skipping sleep. And when you skip sleep often enough, it gets really hard to talk clearly and you find yourself rambling a lot and people's words to you don't always make sense. This is why I am really glad it is the beginning of spring break.
I think I get more sleep in general though than some friends I know. So there is no need to get worried about me. I'm doing way better than a lot of other people.

Wind Tunnels and Ear Plugs

That has been my day thus far. The ear plugs came in when we ran the wind tunnel in my fluid dynamics lab at greater than 150 feet per second. It gets very loud with a high-pitchy sort of sound. But, hey! we're doing stuff with a real live wind tunnel so everything's okay.

And some time today I have to leave my comfy warm seat on my couch and drag my aching muscles (from exercising yesterday) out into the cold again so I can walk around and talk to recruiters at our spring career fair. Botheration, I probably have to wear high heels again, don't I...

Let's blow up the moon

Well...that's not actually the goal of my senior design class. But it is a possible outcome to some of our current ideas for launching a space module from the moon to Mars. It's been quite funny as we throw out the wackiest ideas and then realize what we just said and what the possible side effects would be.