Week 9: July 21st - July 27th
Sunday:
In keeping with the attempt to go to about a million different churches this summer, we went to church with David and his family in the morning at Bethel Baptist Church. I haven't been to a Baptist church in awhile, so it was entertaining, especially when the pastor recognized that we were visitors and officially welcomed us from the pulpit (ah, you've gotta love small towns). Then we had a lovely lunch that David's parents graciously prepared. We definitely enjoyed our stay in Rockwell.
We left around 3pm to head back to Raleigh. Let me assure you that that is a rather hot time to be driving without air conditioning. We stopped at the Super Walmart in Siler City because they don't have one in Raleigh (how absurd is that??). Then we had a pleasant evening lying around the house recuperating from the attempted skiing.Monday:
I don't think my computer likes me at all. I do not understand this, as I am very very nice to it. Oh well, I fear we may never bond since I'm leaving soon, and it was carried off today yet again by the tech staff here. It should be back tomorrow, and I will begin attempt number #4 at making it feel loved so that it works properly for the last few weeks I'm here. We also had the software engineering reading group in the morning. I worked on Nachi's computer for the rest of the day.
I finally finished The Beautiful and Damned by Fitzgerald. I liked it much better than This Side of Paradise. We had dinner (baked spaghetti, yum), and then Kimberly and I played Uno while we watched the Braves game. I haven't watched in several days - so can anyone tell me what the deal is with those hideous new jerseys??Tuesday:
Today I got to bounce around from computer to computer. I'd work on one for awhile, and then its owner would return, so I'd switch to another one. Same thing would happen again, so I'd switch back to the first. And so on and so on. I worked more on the survey, as I do every day. We also met with Dr. Stallmann after lunch, and he explained the answers to some of the theory questions on the GRE. After talking with him, I realize I still have a lot to review in the theory department! My little computer finally came back to me in the afternoon, but it also had a new login account and password which I didn't know. So I'm not going to be able to use it until tomorrow.
This is Laura's last week, which makes us all very very sad. She went to dinner with Annie, and I was going to play volleyball, but I'm still sore from skiing, so I decided to skip out.Wednesday:
I worked for FOREVER trying to handle the case where a user inputs a single quote into a text field. To insert the text field into the MySQL database, they have to have \'s in front of them, so I just had to cycle through the text and anytime I found a ' , just stick a \ in front of it. No big deal. STILL, it took me forever, just because I kept getting parse errors from PHP. It was vexacious. But I prevailed. Laurie suggested that we spruce up the appearance of the survey a bit. As I have little to no aesthetic sense about these things, I dragged Laura to my computer, showed her the screen and said "now how do I make that pretty?". She of course made some wonderful suggestions, and the whole thing looks far less depressing now.
Annie invited Laurie, Laura, and me over for dinner as it's Laura's last night here. She's leaving tomorrow after work and driving to Chattenooga. It was great getting to spend time with just the girls. I got to try authentic Cuban coffee for the first time, and it was really really good. Annie also showed me her shrine to Ga Tech (her spare bedroom filled with all sorts of related paraphernalia), which is aptly named of course, when you consider that a shrine could also refer to a tomb for housing the dead ;-). I will admit, however, that though prior to this summer, the very thought of Ga Tech was revolting, after spending time with a real life Ga Tech graduate, I realize the school can't be all bad.
After getting back from Annie's, I helped Laura pack up. I keep fussing at her for leaving me (after which she points out that I'm leaving next week anyway). She gave me an early birthday present, the new Dave Matthews Band cd, which was an impressive act on her part, knowing her general (unreasonable) dislike for them. Now I get to listen to it on my drive home (and I can quit dropping hints to my sister that she needs to get it for me). We are all sad she is leaving, and we're going to miss her.Thursday:
We had yet another security meeting. This chapter was on passwords, which was interesting, but we only talked about it for a minute. We read through a paragraph I wrote to send out with the survey, and everyone offered suggestions. Then Lily presented to us the reliability tool she has been developing over the summer for her independent study course. Laurie told me she wants me to do a presentation for next week, that should be entertaining.
Laura went ahead and made her final journal entries and finished up her website. (Note: To quote my roommate Julie quoting her high school English teacher - "Pies are done, you're finished."). Then she just packed up her stuff and left us. We all walked her out to her car and tried to block her way out of the parking garage, but she slipped out anyway. We're all very sad that she's gone. It won't be the same around here next week without her. It's a good thing she only lives 4 hours away from me when we're both back at school. We'll still be able to get together plenty :-).Friday:
I went back to Atlanta yet again for a wedding. This is the last one I'm going to this summer (there's only one left now, and I'm not going to be able to make it). My dad took me to lunch and then I talked with my family for a bit before I headed to Cumming, Ga for the wedding. It was every bit as enjoyable as I knew it would be, and I am glad I went. I got to see a lot of people that I haven't seen in ages; it's always nice to catch up.
Saturday:
I had spent the night in Alpharetta with a friend of mine from high school (Julie), so in the morning I got to spend some quality time with her adorable 2 year old niece. On my way home, I stopped by to visit Shawn (whose wedding I was in) for a bit and see some pictures. We were speculating on when Jen was going to get engaged. Lo and behold, when I got home, Jen & Ben were at my house... he had proposed the night before. So there's another wedding - but that'll be next spring. That night, my family had been invited to dinner by some friends at church, so I went with them, and it was another pleasant evening (with very good food).