Well,
I arrived in Massachusetts today. My
leaving Raleigh was quite an event. I –
the unemotional, even-keeled, level-headed, down-to-earth Valerie – started
crying before we left the house. I guess
everything seemed to be kind of happening at once. I felt overwhelmed by the prospect of going to
another state alone, where I don’t know anyone except though email and maybe a
phone call.
I
calmed down pretty easily before we got to the airport. When we got there I entered the e-Ticket
line, thinking I could hand the people there my receipt, get my boarding pass,
and be on my way. Yeah, right. I was informed that the travel agency had not
paid for my ticket. It cost us $111 more
than it would have been, since dad had to pay for it right there. My internship program was supposed to spend
up to $500 on relocation, and now instead of a $407 ticket, we had a $518
one. I don’t know what happened yet, so
I don’t know whose fault that whole mix-up was.
Either
way, I started crying once again. (I
guess I was making up for all that time I was so calm and optimistic about
everything.) I was glad my whole family
was there. My little siblings are so
sensitive whenever I’m upset. I had a
whole crowd of 5 little sisters, my little brother, and two neighbor kids
hugging me (not to mention mom and dad).
I sure felt loved :-). Actually,
another lady in the airport started crying because she thought my family looked
so sweet. We got a group picture while I
still had some tears in my eyes, then I headed off to my gate. Once I got on my plane, I struck up a
conversation with the lady in the seat next to me. It really helped to get my mind on something
else. My flight left at 3:10.
At
4:50, I got to Hartford, Connecticut (which is a lot closer to Amherst than
Boston). I used a service phone to call my shuttle, then I called home. Mom picked up the phone and told me she’d
cried all the way back to the car after seeing me walk off alone. I had the chance to tell her that everything
was going smoothly and I was ok. This
girl from California who goes to school in Northampton was using the same
shuttle. She was really talkative, and
she chatted with the shuttle driver the whole way.
I
noticed some differences between NC and MA on the way. For instance, instead of the pine trees of
NC, they have almost all deciduous trees here.
And I noticed that baseball is a big thing here. The shuttle driver and the girl from
California talked for 45 minutes about different teams and who’s rivals with
whom and what this team is doing at that time.
I didn’t understand their talk much more than I get the football talk at
home. It was interesting anyway to hear
them talk about which seat was best (the CA girl liked to sit high up so she
could watch the pitcher). Oh, and how
about the weather! At home in Raleigh
I’ve been sweating like crazy in that muggy 90-degree weather. Here it’s more like late fall weather. The high is usually in the 70’s and the low
in the 50’s. Right now the room I’m
renting feels like 55.
When
I got to my house at 7:00, I met my housemates, Robin and Brendan. They showed me around and then we had some
dinner. They are vegetarians, so we had
some home-grown salad with veggie burgers.
I love it, because I like health food a lot. After dinner we walked downtown for some
ice-cream at a local place called Bart’s.
It’s cool that I can walk just about anywhere.
Well,
not a whole lot has happened since last night.
I slept well, though it was a bit cold, so I piled up the blankets! I got up at 8:30 and had some breakfast, and
now here I am. Brendan is going to show
me the way into campus from here.
Brendan
showed me how to walk into campus today.
It was a kinda hard to remember because he
uses this shortcut that goes through a neighborhood. It’s a pretty long walk, and I was warmed up
quickly (the high is in the 70’s here, but inside the house is between the 50’s
and 60’s). Man, UMass has some HUGE
buildings! The science research building
is like a skyscraper in downtown Raleigh.
It’s pretty intimidating. 25,000
students go to this university.
Twenty-five thousand! That’s
insane! They have huge dorms that look
like major apartments or big hotels.
They certainly make the biggest dorm on Western’s campus (Scott) look
tiny.
The
Computer Science department has their own building. That’s a lot more than I can say for
Western’s CS department – there are 3 rooms to teach and maybe 6 offices. Brendan’s into Robotics, so he brought me to
his lab. The robotics lab at UMass is
working on independent movement of arms and hands mostly. I learned about “degrees of freedom” which
indicate how much dexterity a certain appendage has. For instance, your arm has 7 degrees of
freedom. Your upper arm can go up and
down, forward and backward, and rotate.
That’s 3 degrees. Your elbow can
only bend in one direction. That’s a
total of 4 degrees. Then your wrist can
go up and down, side to side, and rotate.
All of that adds up to 7 degrees of freedom. To construct a robot arm that mimics a human
arm, you have to give it the same 7 degrees of freedom. That’s not even bringing the human hand into
play. I’m guessing your hand has about
20 degrees of freedom, 4 for each finger including the thumb. Most of the robots in the lab only had 2
fingers and a thumb. http://www.robotics.utexas.edu/rrg/learn_more/low_ed/dof/
ßThat’s more info on
degrees of freedom if you’re curious.
After
we got back from campus, Brendan and Robin decided they wanted to go rock
climbing. They invited me along with
them, so I changed clothes, grabbed my bug repellant and sunscreen and came
along. They apparently really like the
outdoors, so they have a supply of climbing materials and everything. We parked in a small neighborhood and hiked
into the woods. I noticed a lot of
people out with their families. There
was one mother planting flowers with her son, and some sisters playing on a
hammock. I guess they really appreciate
the warmer weather since it gets so horridly cold here in the winter. I’ve seen a lot of people at work in their
gardens in my neighborhood. I heard that
there’s an annual “plant exchange,” where the neighbors have a cookout and trade
plants for their gardens!
Anyway, it was quite a hike to the rock face. I felt pretty out of shape, because I was
panting when I got there. When we got to
the climbing spot (which wasn’t higher than a climbing wall) I sat down to
relax a bit. Then multitudes of monster
mosquitoes materialized and fought fiercely for my feet. Ok, well technically they battled over my
legs, but that alliteration was too fun to give up :-). That’s when I decided I should bring out the
bug spray. Robin had tried this natural
stuff that smelled of citronella, but it wasn’t working. She gave in pretty soon and used mine.
Meanwhile, Brendan climbed up behind the rock and set up
the rope. He was the first one to climb
up, and he scampered up pretty easily like a monkey or something. I was next.
It was hard as anything to get off the ground! Somehow there just didn’t seem to be any good
footholds. Finally, they suggested that
I start on a ledge, and that helped me out.
I’ve never done climbing like that – only a climbing wall a couple of
times and the spire at Western. Also
there was this one time I did a weird sort of climbing with Summer Ventures,
where the rock is really sloped and you lay on your belly and push yourself up
with your hands like a seal or something.
That was strange. Anyway, this
sort of climbing really, really, really hurts your fingers. Rocks are rough! My poor fingers were peeling at the end. And the footholds are obviously not so
obvious. Haha
I like how I said that. What I mean is
that on a climbing wall, it’s either flat, or there’s a knob or handle or
something to grab onto and stand on. But
here, you have to judge for yourself whether you like your handhold or
foothold. And man, my arms hurt. Mom and I kid about my not having “upper body
strength” (hee hee), but I
have to admit, it sure is true. I’ve got
these skinny little (long but skinny) arms and I can’t pull myself up a rock
wall. As long as I could use my legs I
was fine, but if I didn’t have a good place to stand, I would slip right off
the wall. Well, after all that, I just
couldn’t get to the top. I got maybe
halfway at the best. I tried my hardest,
and I slipped up lots of times and came right back. However, it was too much for me. Oh well.
Much fun was had anyway.
After
Robin climbed (she got further than me, but couldn’t go all the way), I went
around the wall with Brendan to see how the rope was tied in. It was kinda scary,
but not that bad standing near the edge.
I hugged a tree and looked down at my stuff…then remembered I’d left my
camera down there! Well, Brendan and
Robin worked out this plan to get my camera up.
They used one of the ropes and tied the camera in its case to the rope,
then hauled it up. I got a picture of
Robin from the top of the rock :-).
And,
that was Monday.
Of
course, all this time, during all the fun and games I realized that I was here
for a reason. I had emailed Dr. Clarke
(my mentor) on Saturday, asking for some specifics on my “internship.” Well, I thought she may have been out during
Memorial Day weekend. So I expected to
get some information today.
I
woke up at 9:30 and called the LASER lab using the number that was posted
online. The secretary, Leslie, picked up
the phone and told me that Lori Clarke was still out and wouldn’t be back until
Thursday! She took my phone number and
said she’d call me back when she found out more.
A
couple minutes after I hung up, the phone rang again. It was Leslie again; she told me that Rachel
Smith (the girl who had been helping me to find my housing) would be able to
help me settle in at the lab. The
secretary told me to come in when I could and I would get a cubicle and
everything.
After
I got ready for the day, I started on the trek to the lab. I must admit, I’m not always the best with
directions. I did pretty well overall,
but I forgot a turn one time on the shortcut.
Thankfully I found my way. It’s a
pretty walk. I like all the houses
around here. A lot of them are old-fashioned,
and lots of people have beautiful flower gardens. So, even while I was getting lost, I
appreciated the scenery! :-)
Thankfully
I already knew where LASER (“Laboratory for Advanced Software Engineering
Research.” Now doesn’t that sound important?) was, because Brendan brought me
up there on my first walk to the CS building.
It’s basically located in a wing on the third floor. The main lab is on the end of the hall. I crept in there and asked for Rachel. I was so glad to meet her in person. Earlier, when our only contact was email, she
had seen my signature at the end of my emails.
She asked whether I was a Christian, told me about the church she goes
to and even offered me rides to church if I needed them. It was just cool to finally say hi to the
only person I “knew” (if only by email) in Massachusetts. Rachel then proceeded to introduce me to all
of the other lab people. Three of them
are international students, and I couldn’t really remember their names that
well. One of them was Bin and another
was Jin Bin or something like that (online it says his name is Jianbin). I also met
Jamie (Rachel’s fiancé) and Sandy (the lab assistant basically – if something
goes wrong with your computer you ask him for help). Everyone smiled and was really nice to me,
but I was pretty overwhelmed meeting all of them at once. Then I went to my own cubicle which was in a
separate room. Across from me was Yao, a
girl from China. We had some difficulty
talking (she still has some problems with English), but we tried our best.
Next,
Rachel sat down with me and asked if I had any questions. Well, I wanted to know what happens in this
lab, and what would I be doing? Rachel
explained to me what she does – she looks for ways to represent properties of a
system. The example she used was an
elevator. One property of an elevator
system is: “if you push the close door button, the doors will close.” The problem with this sort of statement is
that it’s unclear. There are a lot of possible
interpretations of that statement. For
instance, does pushing the button mean the doors will close immediately,
without stopping for a person who may be entering the elevator at that moment? Does it mean that the doors will close
someday, maybe after the elevator changes floors? Does it mean that if you get impatient and
push the button repeatedly, the doors will close repeatedly? Does it mean that the doors can’t close
unless you push the button?
There
are already formal ways (one is called Linear Time Logic) of representing this
sort of statement with more precision, but the problem is that these
representations aren’t easy for your average person to understand. And if a system gets to be really huge, even
someone who understands Linear Time Logic would have trouble seeing if the
property is correct. Rachel has been
working on a tool called PROPEL (Property Elucidator) that uses graphical
representations (called FSA, “finite-state automata”) alongside English phrases
(called DNL, “disciplined natural language”) to help average people to
represent properties. The hope is that
there will be more understandability without loss of precision. http://laser.cs.umass.edu/tools/propel.html
Once
Rachel finished describing her work in the lab, she brought me around to help
me get registered. That way I got an
account on the LASER network so I could sign in on my computer and use a local
email account.
Rachel
handed me a stack of papers and told me to read them and take notes and ask
people in the lab if I didn’t understand anything. This was so that I could get an idea of what
everyone was up to. The papers weren’t that
hard to understand on a basic level, but they were extremely dry. I must admit, I had a hard time staying awake
while I read them. My room is empty
except for Yao’s cubicle, and it was completely
silent. I can’t ever focus in a silent
environment. To keep myself awake I
started drawing a German shepherd from my purse. Then I alternated sketching with reading and
taking notes. When I finished the
shepherd, I looked up “cat” on Google Images and drew a kitten hanging onto the
end of a rope and wrote “Hang in there!”
This has always been my way of coping with a boring situation – start
drawing. I draw in class because it
keeps my mind awake and active so that I can hear the important parts of the
lecture and write them down. Some people
think it means I’m not paying attention, but I’m usually able to pay better
attention when I’m sketching.
After
a while of slowly working my way through the papers, I headed on home. I was excited because I already had some
plans for the night. I had emailed the
Navigators, a campus ministry up here, and I got an invitation to dinner at one
of the students’ apartments. I called
Janet Lenze, who is the wife of the Navigators
leader, Don, and asked if she could bring me to the dinner. I didn’t know how to give directions to this
house, so I asked Robin to tell her how to get here. Janet came by a little before 6:00, and after
I met her we left for the dinner. On the
way there we picked up a girl named Allie who was walking to the dinner.
When
we got into the apartment, the first thing I noticed was a red guitar in a
stand by the wall (see mom, there are people with guitars up here!). I met the other girls: Claire, Beth, and
Sarah (there were 6 people total, including me). They all asked me lots of questions about my
life and my family. They were amazed
that I would be brave enough to go alone somewhere where I didn’t know
anybody. I spent so much of dinner
talking that it took me a long time to finish.
Dinner was exquisite, by the way.
There was soup with butternut squash and potatoes and this spice that is
apparently more expensive than gold. (I
have been informed by my great aunt Ann that this spice is called
saffron.) We also had homemade bread and
spinach salad. We ate it all by
candlelight too! It seems like people
are into gourmet food up here. I heard
them talking about these fancy food terms that I haven’t heard of. Without fail, baseball came up once
again. Allie was saying that she didn’t
have cable at her apartment and that she “missed her Red Sox.” Of course I wondered why she loved her red
socks so much and what they had to do with cable. Ah, ignorant me.
After
dinner, we discussed whether or not we wanted to watch a movie (and I played
around on the guitar a bit). We finally
agreed to watch John Grisham’s The Client.
It was pretty suspenseful. I
liked it. I got back home around 11:00
and went to bed after reading more of To Kill a Mockingbird. Somehow I was never assigned that book in
school, so I decided to pick it up. I
like it a lot!
Today
I woke up at 9:30 again. I decided I
didn’t see any point in going to the lab until I knew I had some clear
questions to ask. So I stayed at the
house and ate breakfast and lunch at the same time (Winnie the Pooh would call
this “brunchfast” :-) ). I had Nutella on
toast along with some leftover dinner.
While I ate, I studied Rachel’s paper on PROPEL and wrote down specific
questions that would help to make it clearer.
I also tried outlining the paper by summarizing each paragraph in the
margin beside it.
I left
for the lab at 12:15 and got there at 12:45, while people were still out to
lunch. I started looking more closely at
a paper about FLAVERS, another project that people at LASER are working on. Thankfully, I thought to bring my CD’s and it
was much easier to focus. This project
is not as easy to understand, but I tried to get a general idea of what the
purpose of FLAVERS was. While PROPEL
helps people to express properties, FLAVERS examines properties and verifies
whether they hold or not. I’m still not
fully clear on that.
Rachel
popped in a while later to see what I was up to. I asked her for a demo, so we went into the
lab and she showed me her PowerPoint presentation. I stopped her at different times to ask
questions, but in general it wasn’t that hard to understand what she was
explaining. After the PowerPoint, Rachel
showed me how the program actually works.
We went through an example involving an elevator (who would’ve
guessed). She said that I was catching
on pretty quickly. I do think I’m
getting the hang of defining properties – as long as I’m not dealing with the
diagrams. So far the English part helps
a lot to clarify what I’m saying. Which
is a good sign, because that’s the purpose of the program all along!
Once
we finished the demo, we went back to Rachel’s cubicle and she loaned me a CD
of Australian people singing songs from a musical production of the Secret
Garden. Yeah, it’s just the slightest
bit random. I liked it, though. The only thing that bothered me was that Dickon, who is supposed to be a 12-year-old kid, is played
by a 30-year-old man. Yeah, it’s
slightly strange. I guess there aren’t
enough children in theatre.
I
spent the rest of the afternoon reviewing the rest of the papers, focusing
mostly on the two about FLAVERS and a language called Little JIL. By the time I felt like I sufficiently
understood these papers to ask questions, it was 5:00, and almost time to
leave.
I’m
trying to do one drawing a day now, so my cubicle will be full of sketches by
the end. So far, I’ve done that German
Shepherd, and a cat hanging on the end of a rope. Today I drew an eagle in flight and wrote
part of Isaiah 40:30-31 – “Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men
stumble and fall, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their
strength. They will soar on wings like
eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be
faint.” I only wrote “They will soar on
wings like eagles.” So far, this is my
favorite drawing, so I posted it in the most conspicuous spot :-).
Today
I tried to get in the lab earlier than before.
Instead of waiting till lunchtime to head in, I left here around 9:15
and got in at quarter to ten. Actually,
hardly anyone was there at that time, but it gave me more time to review the
papers. Once again, I was prepared with
CDs, so my work wasn’t so tedious as before.
I
forgot to mention that yesterday a man came to my cubicle and introduced
himself as George. He is one of the
people in charge, along with Lori Clarke.
He came in yesterday and made sure I understood how the lab works. He assured me that we were not on a clock
schedule and I shouldn’t have to worry about being in the lab from 9 to 5. Nice.
Anyway,
George (I feel so weird to call my superiors by their first names, but I don’t
remember his last name, and that’s what all the other students call him), as I
was saying, George was walking past my room today, and through my headphones I
heard him say, “Yes, she’s in here.” I
took off my headphones, and George introduced me to my mentor, the legendary
Dr. Lori Clarke! I stood up and shook
her hand and she quickly made sure I was settled in ok and everything. She’s pretty busy because she’s been away at
Scotland since Friday or Saturday and she has 300 emails to sort through and
tons of meetings. So I asked if we could
make a meeting to discuss my assignment here, and we agreed on 9:30 am Friday.
After
talking to Dr. Clarke, I went into the lab to ask for some demos. They told me it was time for lunch, so I
headed outside with them. Silly me, I
hadn’t packed anything but an apple.
Rachel and Jamie were worried about me.
There wasn’t any bread at the house for me to make a sandwich though, so
what was I supposed to do? Besides, I
don’t tend to get that hungry early in the day.
They gave me a couple of Triscuits anyway.
While
outside, I met some of the other CS people.
The only person’s name I can remember is Emily, but she did the most
talking, so I guess that’s why. Her
parents are hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Apparently they call her only when they need something. They ask her to send food or shovels or
whatever to these remote post offices.
“I’m tired of being the parent! I
wish my grandparents would take care of them!”
Interesting situation there. She
was eating out of a bowl with a four-legged duck painted on the bottom of
it. Her boyfriend made it. Yep.
When I came back in, Jamie showed me the demo for
FLAVERS. Like the paper, this was less
intuitive than PROPEL, so I had to stop him a lot of times to ask him to
clarify. Mostly I was asking things
like: “Why did you do that?” “How does
that change things?” “Why don’t you do
this instead?” (See, Mr. Felder, I did
learn something from your classes! :-) )
Sometimes he had to back up and go to an earlier point in his
explanation, but it helped me to see what was going on a little better. I think this is the kind of thing I’d need
more than a couple of hours to really understand though…
After Jamie, I asked who would be able to give me a demo of
Little JIL. I was recommended to Sandy,
the “lab guru.” Sandy was quite excited
to show off Little JIL. This language is
his baby. He described to me how he came
up with the idea for this language a while back in a meeting. They were modeling a process in another
language called JIL. Everyone was
getting annoyed because JIL was really large and cumbersome. Sandy suddenly had an epiphany (out
loud! He’s not a particularly quiet
person :-) ) that he could write a better language in a week. Of course, he had to meet the challenge. Needless to say, it took more than a week,
but now he has his darling Little JIL.
They’re using this language to model the steps that are followed in
hospital processes. Apparently this
hospital is paying LASER to help them find problems in the blood transfusion
process as well as the way that emergency rooms are run. This presentation was easier to understand
than the FLAVERS one. Of course, Sandy’s
enthusiasm about his subject helped to make it interesting :-).
After I experienced these enriching demos, I went back to
my cubicle and started drawing my next sketch.
This one was a picture of my right hand holding a pencil. Since I’m left handed, this wasn’t such a
great feat as you may be thinking. I’m
sorry if I disappointed you. I’ll let
you know the day I’m able to draw my left hand with my left hand. Then I’ll feel like Escher! Nah, I guess it won’t be complete unless I
draw my left hand drawing my left hand drawing that first left hand. If I ever manage that, I’ll frame it
and feel important, except it wasn’t an original idea, so I don’t know if it’s
really that impressive. Oh well.
While I was absorbed in this hand-drawing, Dr. Clarke asked
if I would still be at the lab at 4:30 for a meeting. I said sure.
I finished up my drawing, and headed to her room at the appointed
time. She was still busy with another
meeting, so I just waited outside the room.
Who should come along at that moment but Anastasia, the only other girl
in this DMP program with me at UMass.
Anastasia is originally from Russia (in Siberia!), but she goes to
school in Alaska. I bet it feels warm
here to her. Actually, she said the
weirdest thing here was the fact that we don’t have a midnight sun. She’s used to constant daylight in the
summer. Pretty cool. Anastasia has an accent, but she has
wonderful English skills. She’s a very
interesting person to talk with, considering her different background.
Next, Dr. Clarke (maybe she’d prefer to be called Lori, but
as I said, I’m not used to that), George, Anastasia and I all had a
meeting. Dr. Clarke and George asked if
we were well settled in our housing arrangements. Let me tell you, I am thankful for the place
I have to stay after hearing about where Anastasia is staying. She has to share a bathroom and a kitchen
with 14 people! The housing is in a
Jewish synagogue, so you can do only kosher cooking. And her rent is higher than mine! I only have to share my bathroom with two
people, and they go to bed before me and get up before me, so our schedules
don’t collide at all. They cook for me,
too. (Don’t worry mom, I do my share of
the dishes.) Good, vegetarian meals…mmm. Not to mention
I have internet access :-). Well, thankfully
Anastasia is getting a microwave from Dr. Clarke. After the meeting, I walked with Anastasia to
her place, which is on the way back to mine, and bade her farewell (doesn’t
that sound nice? I hope it’s correct).
When I got back to the house, I was glad because I had some
plans again for tonight! But, I think
since it’s getting late, that will have to wait for another email…
Here it is! The
Long-Expected Other Email! Unlike the
Long-Expected Party of a certain book, this does not include food. I would send some if I could do so
electronically, but alas, all I can do is make a digital ice-cream cone:
<OO Wow, that’s pitiful. At least it’s a double scoop. Or maybe this can pass for a digital pie:
[} Or a coffee mug: C[_]
Or a tomato: (*)
Ok, enough of that.
Well, Thursday night I was planning on going to a Bible
study with the Navigators. If you
remember, on Tuesday I met some of the girls from the group for dinner. When I got back to my room, I called Beth to
make sure I could get a ride. She asked
me if I minded being picked up early. I
was fine with that, so she came by a little after 6.
Beth first brought me to her apartment. I met her husband, Leon. Leon is very nice, but fairly quiet, like
Beth. He’s leading the Bible study. Beth and Leon live in a basement, but it’s
more like a full apartment because it has a kitchen, living room, and laundry
room. It’s a nice little place. They had an awesome picture of a lion on the
wall in their living room. Also, this is
even more awesome, they had the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen. And get this – her name is Eówyn! She’s a young
Maine Coon that they got from a breeder.
Grey with white paws. Really, she
was a very pretty cat. Maybe if I get a
camera I’ll take a picture of the White Lady of Rohan
and put it on my site :-).
I helped Beth and Leon load the food into the car. This Bible study includes dinner! What better way to spend your night than
filling up with both physical as well as spiritual food? We drove to the place where we were meeting,
which is a house that Allie is “house-sitting.”
When I came in, I was introduced to Jeff and Andy (wearing an old Back
to the Future shirt), who are both apparently CS people too. Allie, Sarah, and Claire were already
there. We hung out and had some small
talk (at some point another guy named Shawn came) while the food was being
finished.
Once again, the food was fairly fancy. We had make-your-own chicken salad, with
hand-grated parmesan. Mmm… Hey, this is
the first time I had meat in almost a week!
I don’t miss it, but maybe I should take some supplements to make sure
I’m not missing out on anything by eating vegetarian food.
After dinner, we started the Bible study. During the Bible study, I noticed that I was
one of the main contributors. I’ve
always liked discussions. Shawn is kind
of a clown, so he joked around a lot.
Jeff is a more intellectual type, and he added lots of philosophical
comments. Leon told us that this summer,
we will focus on the parables of Jesus. I
learned that parable comes from two Greek words. The para- part
comes from a word meaning alongside. The
-ble part comes from a word meaning life. So parables are something that can be
juxtaposed with situations in our lives, to help us to see our situation more
clearly. Cool, huh?
For quite a while, we discussed why Jesus taught in
parables. It seems at first glance that
He would use them to make things clearer.
Well, this is pretty quickly disproved by John 4:11-12:
He
told them, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is
said in parables so that, ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and
ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be
forgiven!’”
Why would Jesus make things more confusing on purpose? That seems cruel to “those on the
outside.” Well, Jeff suggested that
perhaps this was a way of making people need to draw close to Him. It says that after Jesus told the parable of
the Sower, some people stayed after along with the
disciples and asked what it meant. Those
who stayed and asked for an explanation received in full what Jesus had for
them. It was a conscious decision to ask
for more. Well, I’d never looked at it
that way. Of course, we mentioned some
other points, such as the fact that stories are easier to remember, once you
know what they represent.
After our Bible study, people hung around for a while. We started joking about Harry Potter,
of all things. Some people were planning
on going to see the movie that was coming out this weekend. Shawn, who had been previously joking around
so much, got pretty serious about Harry Potter. He claimed, and I agree, that our culture
makes light of the occult too much. I
did enjoy the first couple books and movies.
Still, I think they just get darker, and closer to the real thing, as
the stories progress. I don’t think
someone is a sinner for watching them, but as a personal choice, I’ve decided
not to read the rest of the books.
Thankfully, everyone was very civil and mature about this topic that has
made some people go so far as to burn the books. I think that’s going way to far.
During the whole meeting, it’d been raining and icky
outside. At the end, the sun came out,
and what should appear outside but the most gorgeous rainbow I’ve ever
seen! I’ve never seen one as clear or as
complete. There was even a faint second
rainbow encircling the first! You could
see the whole spectrum in the brighter rainbow, and the spectrum repeated
itself 4 or 5 times in smaller rainbows right below it. It’s hard to explain, and I’m so sad I didn’t
bring my camera. It was still amazingly
beautiful!
Today was my first
LASER meeting. We all got into a
conference room and sat around a long table.
Dr. Clarke and George and another in-charge-type guy sat at the head of
the table near the door. I sat by
Anastasia. The students were beginning
their conference as usual by going one by one around the table and explaining
what they had been up to this week. Dr.
Clarke stopped them before the second student had finished talking.
“Wait, we have new
people in this room! Please introduce
yourselves and explain what it is you’re working on.”
The first student began
again, and each person gave a brief introduction. Each person told also told us which group was
theirs. The lab is broken up into two
broad categories. There is the “Process”
group, that works on laying out the steps that must be taken for a particular
process to work out. These people work
with Little JIL (the language I mentioned earlier) to map out what happens in
hospitals, both in the blood transfusion process, and in the way that emergency
rooms run. This group is lead by Steve,
who was the other “in-charge” guy at the head of the table. Steve has kind of wild black hair and
glasses. He seems like just another one
of the students, because his manner and clothes are very casual. He leaned back and kind of relaxed in his
seat at the meeting.
Dr. Clarke and George
run the “Analysis” group. That will be
my group. Oh, I never described Dr.
Clarke or George. George looks like a physics
professor I think, because he has a beard (kind of graying, but more black than
gray). I guess the beard makes me think
of physics professors because when I was in high school, my physics teacher,
Mr. Boyer had one. George has an accent
where he says “Mam” instead of Mom and “pap” instead
of pop. I don’t remember what region
that accent’s from. Dr. Clarke has brown
wavy hair that’s cut a bit higher than her shoulders. She seems to often be in a rush, but I guess
it’s because she’s so busy. All three of
them are very helpful and encouraging. I
can tell they all want the best for their students, and they are quite personal
and easygoing.
When it became my turn
to speak, I introduced myself as a DMP student and said I would be working on
PROPEL with Rachel. I hadn’t really
gotten into things enough to have much to say besides that, but most people were
pretty quick anyway.
At 3:30 today there was
a reception, where many of the CS grad students had to present posters about
their work. There were four posters from
LASER, and probably 40 or 50 total.
Brendan was there with his robotics poster, which had info on the work
being done by the robot lab (a big portion of which is funded by NASA). The robot lab does a lot of work on automated
object manipulation, such as making a robot hand able pick up a soda can without
having to be told all the mundane steps required to complete that task. There’s an amazing amount of different steps
required to determine if the hand has the can securely in its grasp (well
balanced between all the fingers) without squeezing it to death.
I spent a lot of time talking to one of the Process
students. Her name is Kim, and she’s
tall like me. It’s always fun to meet
fellow tall girls :-). Kim is very
boisterous and talkative, and I learned that she’s from California. (Maybe it does run in the state, Sara!) Kim, unlike me, is really athletic. She used to be a huge volleyball player. However, she said she’s still a geek through
and through. I think Kim had one of the
coolest assignments that I’ve heard of.
For a whole semester, she would regularly go to the hospital that asked
them to find problems with their emergency room. Kim would stand in a corner of the emergency
room and just observe what happened every day and take notes on the procedure. Of course, the hospital workers asked her why
they couldn’t just tell her what they did. She knew, however that the steps you’re
supposed to follow are not always the ones you take. Corners are cut and shortcuts are taken for
the moments convenience, but these actions may prevent the most efficient
result. Kim ended up with a huge tree in
Little JIL, so big she needed more than 40 pages to fill with sub-processes.
At the reception I met Leon, who is Lori Clarke’s
husband. He’s average height with grey
hair. Kim thought it was funny when he
tried speaking Russian to Anastasia.
But, hey I don’t know any more Russian than the few words we learned
from Yana. Yana was a little girl who came to stay with my family from
Belarus. I remember that “mashina” means car, “shast” means
now, “dome” means home, “sistra” means sister, “braht” means brother (she would say “Machina,
dome, shast” when she didn’t like wherever we
were). Yup, I couldn’t survive more than
a few minutes in Russia. I could say
“dome shast, dome shast”
all the time and maybe draw a map of America and point to it and say “dome,
dome.” Maybe they’d get the point and help me fly back. But I don’t know the essential, “donde esta el baño”
phrase, so I don’t think I’d be very well off!
Then again, these days there might be someone who speaks a little
English, so I’d probably be ok.
–
Saturday, June 5 –
Today I mostly
relaxed and stayed in bed late. When I
got up, I read To Kill a Mockingbird like mad. I was getting near the end, and you know how
it is when you’ve been into a good book.
I’m always eager for the end, but at the same time a little sad that the
book is finishing. Of course, that means
I have an opportunity to enjoy something else.
Maybe I’ll go to the library sometime soon and look for a C.S. Lewis
book. His writing is great :-). So far, I’ve read all of his Chronicles of
Narnia books (they’re making a movie of them,
which I really hope will be faithful to his writing), Mere Christianity,
and his autobiography, Surprised by Joy.
Lewis is great because he’s so intelligent and logical. I love logic.
One of my favorite classes ever was Logic for Computer Science. There is just something fulfilling about
things that make sense, and it’s fun to have formal ways of testing the truth
of statements. We did a lot of that in
my Logic class.
Sometime in the afternoon, Brendan drove me to a used bike
store called the Hampshire Bicycle Exchange.
I really wanted a bike so I could have more independence. I’ve been long overdue for another one. Besides, bike riding is a lot of fun! I’d forgotten that in my “old age” as I grew
out of my old bikes ;-). I was reminded
of the fun of bike riding when my brother Tyler (he’s 12) invited me to go
riding with him. I borrowed my mom’s new
mountain bike, and I had a blast! We
went to the park across the street from our neighborhood and did a little
“off-road” biking :-). I don’t usually
like anything athletic (the two years I ran on Cross Country were torture) but
there’s something about a bike that just makes it fun. I guess I like the fact that I can get
somewhere fast. When I ran cross
country, the miles took sooooo looooong
to pass by, I would just give up and walk.
But on a bike, even if I feel my muscles burning, at least I’m not
crawling along at a tedious jog. It
seems to have more of a point, too. In a
cross country meet you run in huge circles, 3 or 4 times, looking at the same
scenery. Here, when I ride my bike, I’m
exploring or going somewhere. I guess
that’s my logical mind again. Whatever I
do needs to have a point somehow :-).
Running in circles definitely doesn’t have a point.
Well, anyway I already had an idea of what kind of bike I
wanted. Before I left for Massachusetts,
Dad brought me to the local bike store so we could check out different types of
bikes. Since I wasn’t going to ride on
extremely rough, rocky terrain all the time, I didn’t need a serious mountain
bike. But I didn’t want to be limited to
the street by a thin-tired road bike. I
liked the idea of a hybrid, which is made for both on-road and off-road use.
So, I was happy when I was able to find a large-framed
hybrid bike (I need a big bike cause I’m tall).
It looks brand new and it’s a 2003 Fuji Boulevard. The guy at the store said it’s new, so maybe
it was leftover from another bike store.
Anyway, it was exactly what I wanted.
It even has a front suspension :-).
I tried it out as soon as we got back.
I also practiced taking off the front wheel, which is amazingly
easy. I rode to campus to make sure I
knew my way on a bike (the shortcut I take when I walk would be difficult to
bike on). It’s easy – downhill the whole
way in. Of course, that means it’s
uphill on the way out, but that’s ok, I need my workout sometime. I went and explored campus a bit, and got a
glorious, up-close view of the freshman housing. It’s scary how huge the buildings are. I think if I was going to be a freshman at
this university, I would take one look at those buildings and turn around and
head straight back home. I don’t like
big environments, and 25,000 students is waaaay too
much for me. I like my little 8,000
student school. Well, ok, there are
smaller schools out there, but Western couldn’t be more perfect for me. :-) I am exactly where I need to be.
Remember how I had all those problems with my plane
ticket? How it was just a reservation
when I thought I had an actual e-Ticket?
Well, as soon as I got here I sent an email to the people in charge of
the finances for DMP. This is what I
sent:
Dear Lori Clarke, Nancy
Amato, Jessica Hodgins and anyone else concerned,
As you may know, I am one of the students participating in
the DMP program. I came from North Carolina
to work in Massachusetts with Dr. Clarke.
As the DMP website requested, I called the Uniglobe
Democracy Travel to schedule my flight up.
Well, I got three rather unclear emails which lead me to believe that
they had taken care of things and I had my ticket. However, when I arrived in the Raleigh
airport yesterday, I was informed that I didn't have a ticket, but only a
reservation! Because my reservation was
not yet paid for, my dad had to buy the ticket for $518.70 since it was last
minute. The emails I'd gotten said the
ticket would be $407.20. This would have left some money for the shuttle I
needed to get to campus. As it is now, I
hope we can at least be refunded the $500 for transportation.
I hope this problem wasn't caused by a mistake on my
part. I read the DMP website and the
emails from Uniglobe Democracy Travel carefully many
times. I'll include what I have read,
and hopefully someone can tell me why I had this problem and what can be done
about it.
Thank you,
Valerie Gartland, DMP Participant
Actually, I got a quick reply, on Tuesday, June 1st:
Valerie,
I
apologize for what you went through. I
contacted the travel agency to see what happened. Evidently, the ticket you received by email,
the one below, was not a firm confirmation (there is one sentence that says you
need to confirm). The travel agency was
waiting to hear from you to confirm the reservation and when they didn't hear
back from you, they couldn't make the reservation.
Having
said that, I agree that what was sent to you looked like a firm
reservation. It states that all you have
to do is print it out and that it is an e-ticket. The travel agency apologizes. They usually include wording that
specifically states that you need to contact them to confirm the
reservation. A new person at the agency
handled this ticket and did not include this language.
I'm sorry for all the trouble you had to go
through. I would have read the ticket
the same way and thought it was firm.
You will be reimbursed for all travel costs, even those above the $500
limit. Please send me your receipts and
I will have a check sent to you.
Dana Neill
What a blessing! I’m so glad that I (and especially my dad)
will be reimbursed. I was afraid there
was something I had done wrong, but the new guy at the agency just hadn’t been
clear enough. Well, anyway that whole
issue is taken care of :-).
Today I got a ride to church with Beth and Leon. They said they’d come to pick me up at
sometime between 9 and 9:10. Well, they
ended up coming around 9:20 (by my watch anyway). I started to get worried that they’d
forgotten me, but thankfully they hadn’t.
The church I went to is called College Church. We had to drive out of Amherst to a
neighboring town called Northampton. On
the way in, we noticed this big trailer being pulled by a tractor. It had lots of plants on it and streamers at
the back and a banner saying “Happy Birthday.”
Well, we were confused to say the least.
“You don’t see one of those every day,” said Beth.
“Really? You don’t?” I asked, laughing. :-)
College Church is in this large building that is shaped
unlike any other church I’ve been to. It
looks sort of like a barn because it has a really high, sloped roof. But there are tons of windows. They hardly even needed indoor lighting
because the light was streaming in from outside. Also, unlike my church at home, the sanctuary
is laid out lengthwise, instead of widthwise.
The building is just really long, so I guess that was the best way to set
it up. http://www.thecollegechurch.org/
We were a little late, so the singing had already begun
when we got there. They sang two songs
I’ve never heard in my life at first, but then they sang some good ol’ classic praise songs that Christians sing everywhere
you go :-). It’s fun to have that sort
of community, where you can close your eyes and sing along with people you’ve
never seen before in your life. What a
wonderful connection the Church has! I just
read recently about a man who was in another country, feeling kind of lost and
alone. Well, along comes this guy
whistling the tune to an old hymn. The
lonely man came up and walked alongside him.
They whistled together, finishing the tune. At the end, the two of them spoke rapidly and
joyously in different languages, but they understood each other’s hearts. They embraced, then went on their way
refreshed. Though these people here
don’t speak a different language, it can feel lonely not knowing anyone around
you. But I already have a supernatural
connection with my fellow Christians!
The worship band had all sorts of instruments. They had a fiddle, a mandolin, an electric
guitar, a synthesizer, and I think they had a flute too. The people were upbeat, clapping type of
people, who like to have fun when they’re worshipping. I’m used to that (and even more, such as
jumping and dancing) with my Campus Rock friends! :-)
Then these missionaries, Peter and Rachel Noonan came up to
tell about what they do in Iraq. Peter
was one of the most dynamic, excited (on the verge of ecstatic) speakers I’ve
ever heard. Rachel seemed fairly
quiet. Peter wasn’t in the least bit
held back or shy. From the second he got
on the stage, he spoke loudly and clearly with a lot of gestures and
emotion. He was funny too, the way he
joked about the danger in Iraq. On his
PowerPoint (which he definitely did not read, but he used to continue at a good
pace) he had a picture of the gun of a tank pointed to himself pasted on the
picture! He explained to us that only
certain sections of Iraq are really dangerous, and the part that they are in is
safe.
The sermon was pretty simple, actually. I was glad that the pastor quickly asserted
that he doesn’t believe all this relativistic junk that’s becoming so
popular. That was reassuring,
considering that the worldview in this area seems to be more muddled. No one seems to think anymore that there is one
absolute truth. I was afraid the pastor
would be vague like that, but I was happily surprised! The sermon laid out 4 basic truths of
Christianity:
1)
God’s
Love (John 3:16-17)
16"For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[1]
that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For
God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the
world through him.
God loves the world unconditionally, the way that a
parent still loves their erring child
You can’t do anything to earn God’s love.
2)
Man’s
Sin (Romans 3:21-26)
…There
is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the
glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that came by Christ Jesus…
People are not inherently good (you don’t have to
teach a child to lie).
We are evil by nature, and God cannot abide evil.
3)
Jesus
(Romans 5:8)
8But
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.
God’s treatment for our sin was to send His Son.
4)
Our
Belief (John 1:12)
12Yet
to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right
to become children of God--
When we accept God’s gift of salvation to us, we
become part of God’s family!
It’s always nice to be reminded of the foundation of what I
believe. It helps me to stand stronger.
On a completely different note, I have been cold down in
the basement a lot of the time. Sitting
with blankets over my shoulders helps a lot, but my feet are always cold. Being tall and thin means I have bad
circulation sometimes. Anyway, I’d been
wanting some slippers to keep my toes toasty.
So, I asked Brendan and Robin if we could go to Wal-Mart. Brendan kind of looked uncertain and said he
didn’t really like shopping there, but if I wanted to he wouldn’t stop me.
Ok, here’s the problem:
So many people here have issues with Wal-Mart! The first taste I got of it was when the guy
driving my shuttle into town mentioned that he had the same pillowcase as me (I
had my pillow with me). I laughed, “Yeah
good old Wal-Mart.” Well, this guy was
like, “Yeah, I don’t like to admit that I shop there, but sometimes I just need
to save money and buy something cheap.”
I’ve never heard anyone embarrassed to say they went to Wal-Mart! That’s the lifeline of my college. Sometimes people go there just for something
to do! I call it “the Sylva mall”
because it’s almost a Western hangout like malls are teenage hangouts. I always see my friends when I go there, and
it’s lots of fun. It’s a Super Wal-Mart,
so I get food there as well as light bulbs or notebooks or flip-flops. Coming from that perspective, maybe it’s
understandable that I was shocked. I
asked him why he felt that way, and he said it’s because Wal-Mart hires young
kids for low pay. I guess that’s a
problem, but I was proud to have a paper delivery route when I was little that
gave me, like, 5 dollars a week! I saved
it up until it became $100 (and kept saving).
I was really proud of my ability to save money.
Well, also there is the issue that Wal-Mart competes with
local stores – and often wins. I guess I
have to agree with that. Brendan also
said that Wal-Mart buys products from China, where people are paid really
poorly to make cheap products. I guess
that’s true too. Still, it’d be really
hard to boycott the store that has been so convenient and so much fun to shop
at. Oh well.
In the end, we went to
Target, which Brendan regarded as the “lesser evil” of the two. I got my slippers and also a stand up makeup
mirror. It was getting hard to juggle my small handheld mirror in the attempt
to put on eyeliner and see what I was doing at the same time.
Today was my first day riding
my bike into work! It was a little scary
being on the edge of the road right next to the cars, but I think I’ll get used
to it after a while. Besides, the
drivers are very polite and they move over to give me room whenever they
can. I’d never noticed how rough and
uneven the shoulder of the street can be until I rode on it with a bike. It’s a good thing I don’t have a pure road
bike, because I think all the potholes and cracks would bang it up pretty
badly. I also had to dodge a dead
squirrel (eeewww).
When I got to the lab, I
had an email from Rachel with an attachment containing the PROPEL tool. It was written in Java, so I needed to have
access to Java on my computer to make it work.
I tried downloading it myself, but I guess I didn’t do it right, because
it wasn’t working. I went over to Yao’s cubicle and asked if she could help me. She knew what was wrong, because she had the
same problem before. So Yao came and
helped me to set things up right. She
was very kind and willing to help me :-).
Along with PROPEL, the
email had a link to a list of properties that Rachel suggested I try and
define. I saved the huge list from the
site and worked on properties one by one.
The PROPEL tool divides properties into alphabets. At first, I tried just defining all the
properties in one alphabet. But then I
realized it would be useful if the properties were grouped together in
different alphabets. I decided each
alphabet could be a different system that had these properties. For instance, I had the elevator alphabet,
which included the doors_close property (after you
push the button one or more times, the elevator doors will eventually close)
and the not_idle property (the elevator cannot be
idle if it is called at some floor).
There was also the gas station alphabet with the one_at_pump
property (only one person can get gas from one pump). I worked for a long time, and I got really
involved in my attempts to define the properties accurately. I got a much better understanding of the
graphical part of the program, so that I would click on parts of the graph to
change the meaning of the property instead of just using the DNL (Disciplined
Natural Language). While I worked on the
properties, I took a couple of notes on features that were messed up, or
additions that would make the program better.
While I was absorbed in
this (it really was interesting!), a girl with long hair (I think her name is
Heather) peeked in the lab and asked if I knew we had an Analysis group
meeting. Well, either I hadn’t heard
about it, or I’d forgotten, but I followed her into the conference room. Anastasia came along too, as well as
Yao. The Analysis group is a lot bigger
than the Process group.
Once again, each person
took turns around the table telling what they’d been up to. I think I understood more than half of what
they were talking about, but some of it I wasn’t so sure about. When it was my turn, I said that I’d been
playing around with PROPEL and writing down what I thought should change. Once everyone had said what needed to be
said, the meeting was over.
Remember that time a
while back when I said I wanted to draw something like Escher? Well, I decided I wanted to draw something
that plays with your mind today. Have
you ever seen that drawing that seems like an old lady when you look at it one
way, then seems like a young lady when you change your perspective? I’ve always found that drawing to be
intriguing. So today, I found it on
Google Images and I drew it from online.
It was so cool to see the shape form little by little as I copied the
picture myself. Maybe sometime I’ll be
able to make stuff like that up. When I
was finished, I showed the picture to Yao to see if she could recognize the two
different perspectives. For a little
while, all she could see was the old woman.
After I pointed out the features of the young woman, she covered half of
the picture and saw it! She thought the
picture was so cool that she wanted to hang it in her cubicle, which was fine
with me :-). Yao said she wanted to test
other people with the picture.
I left the lab at 4:30
today because we were going to go grocery shopping. Man, it was hard work pedaling back to the
house, especially since I wanted to keep going at a fast pace. I’m going to have really strong legs when
this is all over!
As soon as I got back,
Brendan and Robin were ready to go. I
took a minute to catch my breath and grab my purse, and we got into Robin’s
car. The door on the passenger’s side squeeeeaks when you open it. Robin kindly offered to sit in the back so I
could have more leg room.
Being vegetarians, the
grocery store of choice for Brendan and Robin is Whole Foods. They like for everything to be organic and
natural – from their food to their toothpaste to their laundry detergent to their
dish soap to their shaving cream! I
didn’t realize there were so many “natural” products out there! It definitely shows that they have a great
respect for the environment and they don’t want to contribute in any way to its
demise. I think that is a good example,
and something everyone should keep in mind.
Christians should all be environmentalists, to an extent. Nature shouldn’t be held as supreme over
people, but as stewards of this earth, we should take good care of it. Brendan and Robin even have a “nature
friendly” lawnmower. It’s one of those
old-fashioned grass cutters that has rolling blades that clip the grass. That way, they don’t output all that exhaust
and stuff from a lawn mower, and they get more exercise while cutting the
grass. It’s a good thing their yard is
small, though!
Whole Foods was
extremely crowded when we got there. I
seemed to be bumping into someone wherever I went. There are definitely a lot of
health-conscious people around here!
Robin said they hadn’t seen the store that crowded before, too. We guessed it was the after-work rush or
something.
I picked out a few
things for myself while we were there. I
got some apple-cinnamon granola, a couple of bagels, some Triscuits
(not Nabisco, but a natural “alternative”) and raspberry jam. Everything is much more expensive at Whole
Foods, but I think that’s because organic farms don’t mass-produce things like
most. Some produce is lost to bugs and
that kind of thing, I guess.
On the way home from the
grocery store, Brendan and Robin started talking about some strange people that
they see regularly in town. First,
there’s the “Bucket Man.” He stands in
town and plays a big bucket like a drum and sings to people There’s also the “Pavement Licker,” whom
neither of them have actually seen licking the pavement, but he crawls around
on his hands and knees, which reminded them of some poem that mentioned someone
licking pavement. Apparently, there are
a few “crazy old ladies” in town, too. I
don’t know what they meant by that.
Hmmm.
Today a new guy came to work in our lab. He started talking to Yao right off, so I
assumed he’d worked here before. I was
very curious where he was from, because he had a British accent. After he talked to Yao, he introduced himself
to me. He told me he was Danish. Now, I had to stop and think of what country
Danish people come from. Hmm…there’s no
such thing as Daneland or Dania or anything like
that. It took me a while to remember
that Danish people come from Denmark! Heh, that word sounds related to the Riddermark
in the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien did base a the language of the Rohirrim
on the Scandinavian languages. Neato!
Anyway, apparently this guy’s name is Mikkel,
but I’m not sure how to pronounce it (probably like “Michael”). He comes to Massachusetts from New Jersey
every other week or something like that.
He comes to MA to see his kids.
He works as a researcher for…oh, I can’t remember….for some reason I’m
thinking AT&T. Anyway, he’s a
“visiting researcher” in our lab. He’s
not doing anything related to LASER, but he gets to use one of their computers
since it’s just sitting around, I guess.
Mikkel is very talkative, and his Danish
accent hardly ever shows itself, except in how he emphasizes his words once in
a while. Every time I type Danish, I
think of little flaky pastries. Mmm…
I worked more on defining those properties today. I took tons of notes on things I thought
should improve on the program. At 2:00 I
had a meeting with just Rachel, Lori (I’ve been informed that’s what she’d
prefer to be called), and George. We met
in Lori’s office and they asked me to begin.
I went down the list I had created, telling program bugs &
suggestions. They addressed each problem
individually and discussed its importance and feasibility. Each problem got a different sort of
priority. Some were bugs that had to be
taken care of immediately. Others were
features that would be nice to add. The
last category is the long-term dreams, features that would require a lot of
work to get. After we talked about all
those problems, I tried to explain my ideas for a summary. Lori told me to start working on finding all
the possible summary features we should make available to the user.
I drew a castle today.
I figured since I don’t draw inanimate stuff often, I should challenge
myself with something complex and *gasp* containing straight lines! It was hard work getting the perspective
right. I enjoyed the challenge though! There were also tiny little repetitive
details that took a lot of patience. I
got so absorbed in my drawing that I didn’t leave until 6:45! I’m very happy with the outcome, though.
Well, today I tried arranging my summary into a more
organized form. I wanted to make
available every feature of a PROPEL project that you could want to
summarize. I decided to represent the
summary in a tree form, where everything expanded out like this:
Project A
Alphabet 1
Property a
Property b
Alphabet 2
Property c
Property d
Property e
Alphabet 3
Property f
And so on… Each of these
categories would be expanded out more, so that where it says “Project A” there
would also be information on Project A, such as how many Alphabets it has. “Alphabet 1” could give you information on
the how many Properties it has. Each
Property would have information on the Events it has. Here’s an example:
Testing Project
2 Alphabets
4 Properties
8 Events
Elevator Alphabet
3 Properties
6 Events
door_close
Property
RESPONSE Behavior
Action: button_push
Response: door_close
GLOBAL Scope
not_fall
property
ABSENCE Behavior
Action: plummet_to_earth
GLOBAL Scope
not_idle property
EXISTENCE Behavior
Action: moving
BETWEEN Scope
Start: called_at_floor
End: arrive_at_floor
Car Alphabet
1 Property
2 Events
key_required
Property
RESPONSE Behavior
Action: key_turned_in_ignition
Response: car_start
GLOBAL Scope
A “Response” behavior means that one event causes another
event to happen, like pushing the button causes the door to close. An “Absence” behavior means that the event
should never happen, like an elevator should never plummet to the earth. An “Existence” behavior means that the event
is supposed to happen, like an elevator should be moving between the time it’s
called there and the time it arrives. The scope defines when the behavior
holds. A “Global” scope should hold at
all times. A “Between” scope should hold
after the start and no longer has to hold after the end. So maybe you can interpret what the car
summary means for yourself!
Remember how I was building all those properties
before? I got up to, like, 30 properties
by the end! Rachel liked how they were
coming along, and I was excited that they were getting easier and easier to
write as I got used to the tool and the ideas associated with property
definition. So I saved my project
yesterday evening and sent it as an email attachment to Rachel. I thought things were going along well.
I thought wrong.
I first noticed something was wrong when I tried opening my
project that I’d made before. The
computer kept giving me a “file corrupted” error. I tried out the other project I’d made
earlier (which only had 3 properties in it), and it opened just fine. I emailed Rachel to tell her what was wrong
and to ask if she could send me her version of the file, since I’d sent it to
her.
Rachel came to my room, looking fairly distressed. She told me she was having the same problem,
but at least she knew why. Since this
program is only still in its testing stage, there are obviously quite a few
bugs still in it. This bug, Rachel said,
was probably happening because there were various versions of PROPEL floating
around, and perhaps her version wasn’t compatible with mine. She’d been trying to fix this problem all
morning, and it was surprising news that my computer would give me the same
error. Had I changed my version of
PROPEL? No. Had I added anything weird to the file? No.
Had I changed my version of Java?
No. Then she had the idea that
maybe her version of Java was different from mine, and that that could have
caused the problem. Poor Rachel worked
all day on these ideas, trying to fix things.
Though she made some progress with PROPEL itself, she simply couldn’t
get the project I wrote to open.
Finally, she remembered something I had mentioned during
the meeting on Monday. Whenever I wanted
to save my project changes, the program would freeze for a long time. She asked if I could have possibly tried to
save the program at the same time as I attached it to the email I sent
her. I told her that though I hadn’t
intended to do that, it was quite possible. While the program was dragging its feet to
save my changes, I may have opened my email account. Forgetting that it was still saving in the
background, I may have chosen to attach the same file to my email. Since they hadn’t added a “save lock” to
their program yet, attaching the file corrupted it as it saved. In other words, my file was sunk. There wasn’t any way of retrieving it. It was a frustrating day for the both of us,
but more so for Rachel because she was more involved in searching for the solution.
After all this mess, I found lots of different tiger
pictures on Google Images. I thought
that after the castle of yesterday I deserved a break. So I chose a simplified tiger picture that
looked like a team’s mascot. It was just
a tiger’s head roaring and showing its teeth.
It was simple to draw, except for the fact that I only had a ball-point
pen to fill in the solid black stripes.
That took a while.
Since I’d been thinking about buying a digital camera for
so long, I rode to the Ritz Camera store after work. The girl behind the counter was very
helpful. She gave me a catalogue and
explained what kinds of features to look for in a digital camera. I had decided that I wanted a camera for $200
or less, but I wanted the ability to take good quality pictures. While I was standing in the store and reading
the catalogue, a man came in and walked up to the counter. I thought it was interesting that the girl
behind the counter instantly knew him and called him by name “Hello Mr.
Johnson, are you here for your prints?”
That’s one of those small-town type of things you don’t get in
Raleigh. Store employees have too many
customers to remember them by name.
Also, she was willing to take a lot of time helping me to decide what
kind of camera I wanted. I didn’t feel
like she was rushing me or even trying to get me to buy from that store. I was very impressed by the service :-). Still, I didn’t buy a camera then and there
because I wanted to make sure I got the most for my money.
Today was horribly hot.
It finally felt like Raleigh! I
was feeling so sticky and sweaty pedaling back to the house, and I was glad to
retreat to my cool basement. It feels
like I have AC down here! That’s a good
thing, as long as it’s not cool already outside. I don’t know if I’d survive a Massachusetts
winter here!
Well, I was doing my best to cool off in the basement when
Robin called down the stairs to let me know that I’d gotten a phone call! I was excited! I don’t get phone calls here! When I picked up the phone, it was Sarah on
the other end of the line. I thought at
first she had called about giving me a ride to Bible study tomorrow, so I told
her I’d been planning on calling her about that. She said “Oh!
Well, I’m sorry but I can’t give you a ride then. I’m going to a party until 7:00, so I’m going
to be late.” I was fine with that, as
long as I could find a ride with someone else.
I thought the phone call was over, but Sarah said, “I’d actually called for another reason. I was wondering if you wanted to go
swimming?”
Swimming? Of course
I wanted to go swimming! I was so
excited! This was a perfect day for it,
when I was so hot and sticky feeling.
Sarah told me the place she was planning on going was a pond nearby
called Puffer’s Pond. I was all for it,
so I just asked if I could have a little while to get ready.
Sarah came by and talked to Robin a little bit while I was
still getting ready. I made sure I had a
towel and goggles (just in case), then we took off! I was so glad Sarah thought to call me. :-)
Puffer’s Pond had more people than I expected, considering
it was kind of in the middle of nowhere.
As we headed toward the water, Sarah asked “Do you mind cold
water?” I said it depends on how cold is
“cold.” I’ve been in the Nantahala River in the mountains on a rafting trip, and
that water is c-c-cold. Really,
your legs go numb the moment you step into it.
I was glad I didn’t fall out of the raft on that trip! Sarah and I stepped into the water, and it
was cold, but it was nothing compared to the Nantahala. Even so, I wasn’t about to plunge in right
away. I very slowly eased myself into
the water, while the braver Sarah was swimming around in the water pretty
quickly. After very gradual steps, I
finally got to the point where I could swim instead of standing and
shivering. Sarah inquired how good of a
swimmer I was. This depended on how far
we had to go. I hadn’t really swum since
I was forced to join the swim team when I was little. Oh, the agony of competition! Just kidding.
Anyway, I really didn’t know how far I was able to swim. But I was willing to go across the pond to a
dock and a waterfall at the other end.
We decided that if I got tired, we’d just head back to shore.
I was surprised to learn that I did have good stamina (if
not-so-good form) in swimming! It felt
really good to work out my arms. There
was something freeing in being able to swim a far distance without a life vest
or boat or anything holding you up but the water. We talked while we swam, though I was gasping
for breath more than her. The dock and
waterfall were cool. This pond was made
by damming up a stream, and on the dock you could look down to where the
waterfall fell down to join the stream below.
I had so much fun. I hope I can
come back to Puffer’s Pond sometime!
Well, I showed Rachel the summary plan from yesterday. She thought it was a good start, but that it
wouldn’t be very easy to skim quickly for the information that you want. I agreed with her, so we decided a better
display would be a table. It’s more
straightforward anyway.
I spent today organizing my tree summary into a tabular
form. I built this table with a
spreadsheet program (not Microsoft Excel, because all of the computers in the
Lab run Linux). If you want to see how I
organized my data, you can look on the research site. Each element in the table had a link that
would bring you to a more specific summary about that particular element. For instance, clicking on an event in the
project summary view would bring you to the event glossary.
I decided I should draw
something from real life again today.
The only other time I haven’t drawn something from the computer was when
I sketched my hand. That was fairly
easy, too, because I like to draw my hand all the time. I wanted a real challenge, so I gathered some
objects for a little still life. I like
to draw oddly-shaped items instead of just simple shapes. So I hunted around my desk and in my
drawer. I ended up collecting one of
those big paper clips, my Dasani water bottle,
scissors, a highlighter, a bottle of Wite-Out, a key,
a fork, and my bowl from lunch. Of
course, a lot of thought went into the arrangement of these items, in an
attempt to make them visually interesting :-).
I have actually never drawn anything transparent before, so this was a
special challenge.
I was excited again today after work, because I was going
to the Navigators Bible Study! Beth and
Leon were out this week, and Sarah couldn’t give me a ride because of the party
she was going to. The only other phone
number I had was Don and Janet Lenze’s. Claire is staying at their house, so I hoped
I could get a hold of her before she left.
I called that phone number at 5:00.
No answer. I left a message on
the answering machine. I kept calling
back again in hopes that someone would pick up the phone who could at least
give me the number for the house where the Bible study was happening. Still, no answer.
The Bible study was supposed to start at 6:30. I waited until 6:20, and after I got no
replies to my calls, I decided to try something drastic to ensure I got there
:-). I went online and checked the email
where I first found out about this Bible study.
There was an address included! Yay! So I went onto
Map Quest to find driving directions.
Lacking a car, my only choice was to head over on bike. I wrote the most important street names and
the final address on my hand, grabbed my helmet and backpack, and headed out.
The first problem I had was with the weird naming of
streets. There is one called Pleasant
St, which splits up into East-West Pleasant and North-South Pleasant. The directions said for me to get on East
Pleasant. I knew I had to go through
downtown, so I just headed down the main street. But this street was North Pleasant. Well, that kind of confused me, but I figured
maybe the road just changed names somewhere down the line. I knew I had to get to East Hadley St, so I
asked various people who I passed in downtown if they knew how to get to that
road. No one knew what I was talking
about! Then there was a sign that said
“Hadley,” but I think it was pointing to a town.
After turning around a few times, I decided to keep going
on the main road. I stopped when I saw a
lady working in her garden and asked once again how to get to East Hadley. Hallelujah, she told me that East Hadley was
right at the bottom of the hill I was on!
I coasted easily (and speedily) down the hill and turned right on East
Hadley. So far, so good.
I pedaled along the shoulder
of East Hadley a little ways. I saw a
group of apartments on the left, and I wondered if this could be the place
where Allie was staying. No, after I
looked closer, I could see that was definitely not where I was headed. These apartments were lower income housing,
while the place Allie is living is much nicer.
I figured the apartment was further down the road. So I got back out of that place and hit the
road again.
I couldn’t see much beyond the apartments because I had to
go up a hill. Once I got to the top of
that hill, though, I saw farm land stretch out in front of me. Well, not to be daunted, I blazed ahead,
determined to get to this Bible study. I
thought it would be so awesome to get there on my own, even if I was late! So I pedaled on. I was riding through organic farm
territory. There were cow pastures which
seemed to have only 3 cows per acre (do they really need that much
space?). There were lots of goats. There were also sheep that had various
colored spots painted on their backs. I
don’t know what the purpose is of that.
It doesn’t seem very natural or organic for sheep to have red and blue
spots! The scenery was beautiful, with
all those rolling hills. I can’t say the
same for the smell, though! Thankfully I
don’t mind farm smells as much as most people.
They bring back good memories of my grandma’s farm.
Finally, I came to a stop sign in the middle of
nowhere. I couldn’t see any signs of
civilization ahead of me. Also, I didn’t
remember stopping here when Beth drove me to Bible study last time. I figured I must’ve not been paying attention
last time, and the miles would have looked shorter in a car. Either way, I realized that it was getting
dark and I still wasn’t sure where I was headed. I decided the best choice was to just turn
around and head back home. I didn’t like
the miles getting the best of me, but I also didn’t want to be in the middle of
nowhere in the dark with only a bike and a backpack.
Since a lot of the trip there was downhill, the trip back
was – you guessed it – mostly uphill. I
used a really low gear and pedaled some of the way, but when the hills got
really steep (and I got really tired) I just walked my bike. When I got back to the apartments I went to check
them out more closely. I even started
down another neighborhood road next to the apartments. But I didn’t see anything familiar, so I
continued on my trek back.
When I finally made back home, I was tired and a bit
frustrated, understandably. I was also
really hungry because I was supposed to eat dinner at Bible Study. Seeing as I hadn’t been able to reach my
destination, I wanted to accomplish something else to sort of make up for it. So I decided to make something fun for dinner
instead of just a sandwich. I love
cooking, by the way, but I’m not used to the ingredients in the kitchen
here. I pulled out one of the vegetarian
cookbooks on top of the fridge and looked for something interesting but fairly
simple.
Pizza! I love to
make pizza. For a while, I made pizza
every Friday for a movie night with the family.
The best part is the whole wheat crust.
I could never do that low-carb diet, cause I
love breads way too much to give them up.
So I poked around the kitchen, looking for the necessary
ingredients. Aww,
there’s no yeast. I found everything
else I wanted, but no yeast. Thankfully
Robin came back in time to help me (she and Brendan had been out somewhere). I finished making the dough and had it rising
at 8, so I couldn’t even put it in the oven until 9. That was ok with me, cause I really wanted
some pizza either way.
I made 4 individual pizzas with spaghetti sauce, lots of
mozzarella cheese, green peppers (my favorite veggie :-) ), onions, and
tomatoes on top. Mmmm
they were so good. And the whole wheat
crust is so filling, I was stuffed after one and a half individual pizza. I still had some leftover for lunch tomorrow!
First thing today, I had a meeting with George and
Rachel. I showed them the table I built
yesterday. It had links between every
entry to the summary about that entry.
George seemed a little hesitant to comment on my work, like he wasn’t
sure what to say. He did say that he
thought the final summary program should be more flexible than the design I had
set up. I knew that, but I wanted to
propose a general set up. The LASER
meeting was canceled today because it was a “floating holiday.” President Bush had declared a holiday in
honor of Regan’s death. I thought that
was awesome, because I really esteemed Regan.
Mikkel and another guy were talking about him
with a hint of contempt in their voices.
Hey, I know Regan wasn’t perfect, but can’t people give him at least a
little bit of respect after his death? I
tried to give Clinton *shudder* at least the respect due a leader of our
country, whatever my opinion is of him.
After our meeting, I wasn’t required to do stay, but I
wanted to do my daily drawing. I decided
I should let the Lord of the Rings fan in me out, so I drew one of the hobbits,
Meriadoc Brandybuck. It’s a neat picture of him holding a sword
when he’s swearing service to King Theoden (this
isn’t in the movie, but hopefully it’ll show up in the extended DVD :-) )
When I got back to the house, Brendan and Robin were
working around the house. It was a
gorgeous day, and they were doing a lot of outside work – gardening, taking
rust off the car, attempting to fix the motorcycle… When I went inside I noticed that we had some
bananas that were getting pretty spotty.
I was in a baking mood, so I searched the vegetarian cookbooks for a
banana bread recipe. I found one for
banana muffins, with the option of adding chocolate chips. Mmm… I sure enjoyed those when they were done!
After my muffins finished baking, I decided I should take
advantage of the pretty weather. I
brought my computer outside with a power cord and worked on my journal so I
could send some updates home :-). It was
really nice out, but the mosquitoes were pretty bad. I still enjoyed myself, being a part of
nature and technology at the same time!
What better combination can there be?
Today Anastasia and I decided to go on a little
adventure! We wanted to go hiking
somewhere, and I had heard about a trail called the Robert Frost Trail. I asked Brendan and Robin for directions to
the path, which turned out to be fairly simple.
Anastasia called me at noon, and we decided to have lunch, then meet at
my house. Robin was kind enough to offer
to loan her bike to Anastasia.
Anastasia got to the house at about 1:00. I offered her one of the chocolate chip
banana muffins from yesterday, then proceeded to wander around the house
forgetting things for several minutes…
It was one of my spacey days I guess.
Once I was sure we had everything we needed, we set out in
the direction of the Robert Frost Trail.
I pedaled along easily, but Robin’s bike was giving Anastasia some
problems with shifting breaks. At one
point on our path, the road crossed a railroad track. There was a car stopped in front of the
tracks and the “train crossing” alarms and lights were going off. So we stopped and waited for the train to
cross. And waited. And waited…
The car in front of us turned around in a parking lot and headed back to
find a detour, I guess.
“Let’s cross, Anastasia!”
“No, the train will come!
Besides, we’re not supposed to.”
“Let’s at least move closer so we can see what’s going on.”
We inched down to the last white line. Anastasia didn’t want to go any further, so I
continued down to the edge of the tracks and glanced down either side. On the left, there was a truck parked
directly on the tracks – on the right I could barely make out the stationary
form of a train. I didn’t see any people
either. I have no idea what they were
doing (the truck was on this platform that held its wheels up – it wasn’t there
by accident). Either way, I got
Anastasia to cross with me, and we finally got past that train crossing.
Once we crossed the tracks we got on the main road. It was easy coasting all the way down and
then there was the trail on the left!
After some consideration, we decided to actually ride our bikes on the
path instead of locking them and hiking.
The path was nice and smooth, leading through a hay field. Then we got
into the woods, where there was a bridge.
I got down and posed by the stream so Anastasia could take a
picture. Then we brought our bikes over
the bridge and headed onward. The path
was very rocky and root-y (if that makes any sense). We realized it would be easy to stroll
through these woods, but impossible to ride a bike without bumping all over the
place. After we crossed a ford over the
stream, we decided we’d had enough. Instead of walking the rest of the Robert
Frost Trail, she suggested that while we both had bikes we should ride the
“Rail Trail.”
We walked our bikes out of the woods and got back on the
road. I led the way back towards town. Anastasia took over from there, since I
didn’t know the way to the rail trail.
She loves to run, and she’s gone to the trail many times for exercise. We started down the street I use to get into
campus, then turned onto Fearing Street.
It was completely down hill the whole way! It was definitely nice not to have to pedal,
but I had to apply the brakes to avoid going too fast!
At the end of the street, we got onto a “connector” to the
Rail Trail. This was a sidewalk paved
with asphalt and painted down the middle like a real road. At one point the trail split in half with a
median in the middle! The connector ended on the Rail Trail itself. The Rail Trail was once a railroad track that
is now converted into a bike path. It’s
a really popular place for people to run, walk, rollerblade, and (of course)
bike! The path is extremely flat and
smooth and there are trees hanging overhead so it looks like a tunnel of cool,
green boughs. It was a fairly hot day,
but on the trail it felt comfortable.
Because the path is so flat, you hardly have to pedal at all to continue
gliding along. It was fun to see all the
other people on the path – parents with their kids in those little bike
trailers, teenagers rollerblading, people jogging. We passed an ice-cream shop on the way, which
was obviously very well-placed considering all the bikes “parked” outside! I wanted to stop for some ice-cream, but
Anastasia wanted to go there on the way back.
There was a bridge on this path spanning the Connecticut
River, which I heard is the biggest river in New England. It sure is big! It’s hard for me to believe that this is a
river…it looks more like Falls Lake.
It’s so big and still-looking. I
guess I’m used to the smaller, faster-moving rivers in the mountains. It was fun that this whole bridge is reserved
for bikes and pedestrians. You can look
a little further downstream (or was it upstream? I couldn’t tell) and see a
bridge for vehicles.
Not too long after the bridge, we came to the end of the
trail. The trail leads from Belchertown
(isn’t that a lovely name?) in the north, through Amherst, and down to
Northampton. At the very end of the
trail, there was another well-placed ice-cream shop, called Lickety
Split. Anastasia and I agreed to get
some refreshment (I got crème de menthe and Anastasia got black cherry). Next to the ice-cream shop was a garden
shop. We wandered through the flowers,
enjoying our ice-cream cones (and trying to keep them from dripping all over
us!). There were a lot of fountains and
statues and a huge variety of flowers.
Anastasia pointed out these hangers full of flowers that they have in
Alaska. She said lots of houses in her
town have these flowers hanging outside.
These flowers came in a variety of colors, but my favorites were white
with bright magenta. There were a lot of
roses too, which of course smelled lovely :-).
I got a ride with Beth and Leon to church again this
morning. Today we arrived a little
earlier, but the singing had started anyway.
I think that the praise band was warming up. I was excited to see both Jamie and Rachel on
the stage! They both seemed to be
enjoying themselves while they sang :-).
I had no idea they were singers!
I wanted to catch their eye, but I didn’t want to distract them.
The pastor told us that the summer’s sermons would be
“family friendly,” so the older kids could stay during the whole service
instead of going to Sunday school. The
focus is on Daniel. I thought that was
an interesting parallel to my own situation right now. Daniel had been taken from his homeland to
live and learn in the totally pagan culture of Babylon. Now, I’m not saying that Massachusetts is as
bad as Babylon was, but there definitely isn’t the moral, church-goin’ attitude of the South here. I’ve observed that this is not necessarily a
bad thing. Lots of people in the South
may claim to be Christians, but they only go to church as a social
gathering. Here, it’s more of a
conscious choice instead of “Well, mom and dad go to church, so I guess I’ll go
too.”
After church, I went to work on my DMP website. One of the requirements for the stipend I get
through the DMP is that I submit the URL for a website about my experience with
the program. So far, the site wasn’t
looking so good. The links didn’t work,
and the categories weren’t appropriate.
I had basically copied the design I made for my mom’s band’s site
(the blue parts are because he didn’t like the cream color). The band manager wanted a different look, so
I decided to use the design for my own site.
I built some fun buttons in Adobe Illustrator, renamed the pages, and
removed that annoying frame in the header.
Then came the real work.
I wanted somewhere to post my pictures when I got my digital camera
(which I ordered on Friday, by the way!).
I really liked the gallery program that the Campus Rock website uses for
their pictures. It allows you to view
images in a slideshow and I like the way that they’re organized into
galleries. There was a link at the
bottom of the CR gallery to the site they got it from. I decided to look into it.
It was easy enough to download the program and put it up on
my site. The hard part was getting it to
actually work. For the gallery program
to work properly, you also have to download certain image-editing tools. Then you have to tell the program where to
find the tools. I had some problems
because I had to download tools for a Linux operating system (since that’s what
the host I’m using is) but I downloaded Windows tools by accident. After working most of the afternoon, messing
with permissions and different versions of the tools, I was ecstatic when I was
finally able to sign in and add photos on my own site! Yay!
When I was done with my gallery, Beth called to invite me
to dinner (what wonderful timing)! She
came to pick me up and brought me to her and Leon’s apartment. Leon was finishing up a stir-fry with rice
noodles and chicken. Mmm
wow it was good! It was just the
slightest bit spicy, and I love a little bit of spice. They had made it from scratch, too! Once again, I’m impressed by the good taste
in food people have up here!
Rachel suggested that I try to figure out what classes we
would need to build a summary. I started
working on a structure by looking at the Javadocs
they had made for the program. It was
still difficult because I didn’t fully understand the structure of their
code. It’s never very easy to write
something that is supposed to fit into someone else’s code.
I was so excited about the progress I’d made on my site, I
showed it to Rachel. All my site had was
a journal containing these emails and pictures of Campus Rock and my
family. Rachel’s was excited about my
journal, because she keeps a blog of her own. For anyone who doesn’t know what a blog is, it’s short for “weblog,”
or an online journal. Lots of people
make blogs to record their thoughts and feelings or
just to record the exciting things going on in their lives, kind of like what
I’m doing :-). Rachel has a very vivid
and honest writing style. I kind of
stumbled over Rachel’s description of how she and Jamie got engaged. Their love story is my favorite kind. It reminds me of some other love stories I’ve
heard lately (my cousin’s, and some of my CR friends :-) ), where neither
person really set out to find “that special someone” but instead, God brought
them the most awesome person. Instead of
beginning with shallow attraction, they began as friends and God just naturally
brought them together. Rachel said she
had been afraid that finding love would be uncomfortable or awkward in the
beginning, but with Jamie it was as natural as breathing.
We had another analysis meeting, where I told them that I’d
been working on the class structure for the summary. Lori didn’t seem to be too happy with
that. She said she wanted me to work on
a “higher level of abstraction” or something like that.
Today I decided I wanted to draw something that looked
powerful. There’s this drawing of a
gryphon in Alice in Wonderland that I really wanted to use. I found it online and sketched it with fairly
little trouble. You can see it in the
Art album on the photos page.
I received an email yesterday telling me that my camera had
shipped! The online store I ordered it
from uses Fed-Ex, which made me really happy.
I must say that I trust Fed-Ex a lot more than the US postal system (and
they’re faster and more efficient). This
morning I checked the Fed-Ex site to track my shipment. It said that the delivery truck with my camera
had left Springfield, MA at 4 in the morning!
It should get here anytime!
I checked the site again at work. At 11:50, my package had arrived! I didn’t want to leave my camera sitting on
the front steps, so I got on my bike and rushed back home. I’ve been riding on the street so far, but I
wanted to try the sidewalk to see if I could get back faster (and it’s a little
freaky riding on the shoulder right next to the cars). Well, I learned why bikes aren’t supposed to
go on sidewalks.
I had a slight accident on the way to the house. There was a car pulling out of one of the
fraternities, and the guy had stopped at the top of the driveway. Well, I assumed he was stopped for a while,
so I was going to roll right past him.
At the moment when I was about to cross the driveway, he pulled out in
front of me. Wow, I’m glad my brakes are
good! My tire bumped into the side of
his car, and I skidded sideways a little bit.
But, miracle of miracles, I was completely unhurt! No scrapes, no bruises, nothing! I was a little shaken, of course. The guy asked if I was alright. I said I was fine, then slowly rolled
on. I can’t blame him for not seeing me
(though I was kind of mad at the time).
He wasn’t looking for any fast-moving objects on the sidewalk. I just thank God that I wasn’t hurt (and my
bike is totally fine). From then on, I
decided that driving on the road is actually safer.
Well, I was thrilled when I got to the house and found a
little package on the porch waiting for me.
I immediately opened it up using my keys and pulled out the pretty box
that my camera was in. I brought the
outside packaging into my room, put the camera’s box into my backpack, and
headed back to the lab (this time on the road).
I was so excited to play around with my new “toy,” and Yao and Anastasia
had fun with it too.
I was scheduled to have a meeting at 3:00 with George and
Lori. Rachel had printed out the class
structure I’d worked on, and she passed them out to everyone. It’s strange how these meetings go. There are hardly any questions and answers,
at least not when we start out. They
just look at me and expect me to launch into explaining what I’m up to. I kind of feel like I’m taking an oral
exam. They just watch me quietly until I
run out of things to say, then they offer suggestions. This time, Lori stopped me to ask what my table
summary looked like. I’d forgotten that
only George and Rachel had seen my previous work. So I brought them into my cubicle and
demonstrated how the table worked, with the links between different types of
summaries. Lori and George didn’t really
say much about the work I had done.
Instead, they told me that they wanted me to think “more abstractly”
about the program.
I was hearing a lot of requests at once. By the time they were finished, the best I
understood was that they wanted me to look at databases to see how they work
and how we could use one for the summary.
I have never done anything with databases before, so I was feeling
pretty lost. When they asked me what I thought
of their instructions, I said they were very vague. I told them I wasn’t really sure what I was
supposed to do. They told me that
was the difference between research and homework. In school you are told what to do all the
time, but in research no one has the answers – they’re trying to find the
answers. That made me think I was
supposed to feel lost. The problem was,
(and maybe I didn’t communicate this clearly enough) I had no idea what they
wanted me to think about or research. I
thought I had a vague idea of it, which is why I kept saying their instructions
were vague. Either way, I felt like what
I’d done so far wasn’t really what they wanted, and I had hardly any idea what
they did want. But I also felt like that
was how it was supposed to be.
Afterwards, Rachel came in to tell me that she’d seen that
I was frustrated by their instructions, and she’d felt the same way when she
started out in grad school. Later on,
Lori came in and said she was sorry if I felt like she was unsatisfied with my
work. She said “I know you’ve been
thinking about this problem, but I’d just like you to think more abstractly
about it, ok?” It made me feel better to
know she wasn’t disappointed in me, but I still had no idea what she meant by
“think more abstractly.” I just nodded
nonetheless, because I didn’t know what to say.
I guess my confusion was partially my own fault for not insisting that I
really had no idea what she was telling me to do.
After Lori left, I found a photo of a basset hound with a
baseball cap on. His plaintive
expression reminded me of how I felt.
That was my drawing for the day, and I focused my mind on the drawing to
relieve the frustration of my confusion.
Since I have a limited amount of colored pencils, I had to combine
colors to get exactly what I wanted.
Since the ears were a reddish brown, I combined some orange with the
brown pencil, and on the face I used yellow and brown. I’m very happy with the drawing now.
Today I spent a lot of time on the internet looking for
database information. I was trying
really hard to find something simple and broad that listed “These are the
capabilities of a database.” But
everything was some sort of advertisement for specific database software. I got pretty frustrated. I also got an account on the Windows computer
in the lab. I tried messing around with
the Microsoft Access database program, but it seemed to be too complicated to
really understand what I needed to know…
At work, I asked Rachel and Jamie if they could bring me to
Bible study at their church. They said
sure, but they’d need to leave a bit before 5, so could I ride my bike back
early? I said sure, but I didn’t leave
as early as I meant to. They were there
waiting for me when I got to the house, but they hadn’t been there long,
thankfully.
Jamie and Rachel had some errands to run at their
respective houses, so I got to ride along and see where they lived. Rachel’s house is kind of a cute cottage with
thick green shag carpet and a flagstone path.
I thought the path was cute, but Rachel said it’s an annoyance when you
have to shovel snow off it!
Jamie apologized multiple times for his “messy”
apartment. He said because he was in the
middle of moving his stuff into Rachel’s house (in preparation for their
wedding in August) his books were all in boxes and so on. Well, “messy” was not the first word that
came into my mind when I entered his apartment.
Yes, his books were in boxes, but they were neatly stacked and the boxes
were kept at the side of the room.
“Messy” makes me think of things strewn all over the place, like my room
gets sometimes… His house definitely
didn’t fit that word.
Jamie was busy making chocolate pie (he’s quite a chef)
while Rachel showed me the kinds of board games they play. These people are serious board game
players. (“I guess I like board games
more than most people…and by that I mean that I like to play board games more
than most people do…but by that I also mean that I like board games more than I
like most people…” - Strong Sad from Homestar Runner)
They have all these unique games, many of which seem to have some
culture associated with them. Like Streetcar,
where you build a trolley line through San Francisco, or New England
where each person is a family colonizing the country. A game called Settlers of Catan is apparently also really good, but I don’t know
anything about it.
Once Jamie finished making his pie, we headed off to
Northampton to the Alpha Bible study.
They told me this study is actually international! The format is that they first have dinner
together, then they watch this video of a British guy teaching, and they break
up into small groups to discuss the video.
Tonight the dinner was a cookout.
It was the last night of the study, and everyone was very talkative and
excited. The first thing I noticed was
that the Bible study was a totally different age group from what I’m used
to. I usually spend my time with groups
of college students within a few years of my age. However, these people were late 30’s on to
60’s and 70’s! This isn’t a
criticism. Actually, it’s cool to spend
time with people older than me. They
were all very warm and inviting. It’s
amazing how as people mature they realize that being cliquish and rude isn’t
worth it. At least, most people
learn that. I think that the few who
don’t are depriving themselves of real, open friendship. But, it’s their problem if they want to
ostracize the world.
The study was about the Church of Christ. It really rang true with me, because I have
experienced the Church spread across the nation! It’s amazing all the places where there are
people of God! I have definitely met
some great people here – the Navigators Bible Study and Rachel and Jamie! This also reminds me of the wonderful time I
had with my family in Florida January of this year. We were invited by Community Bible Study to
perform songs that my mom wrote for their children’s ministry. We stayed at the resort where their conference
was being held, and we sang and danced in front of more than 700 people! (If you’re curious about my singing family,
check out www.kingskompany.com) Anyway, during that trip, we met so many
amazing Christian ladies and gentlemen who had such a great love for the Lord. They were also fun and easy to talk to! It was simply incredible to worship with them
and talk to them and listen to their stories.
These people came from all over the United States, and it was wonderful
to hear what was happening in each area.
When I got home after Bible study, I realized that I hadn’t
drawn yet today! So this time I decided
I might as well challenge myself again.
I hate to draw self-portraits because the human face is so easy to mess
up. It’s especially evident when it’s
something I’m as familiar with as my own face.
I did it anyway, and though I don’t love the outcome, I don’t totally
hate it either. I guess that’s an
accomplishment :-).
I spent a lot of time today messing around with Microsoft
Access on the Windows machine in the lab.
I still didn’t know really what I was supposed to find out from it. I tried building a little bit of a database
from the summary I had made before. I
didn’t understand databases well enough to know what I was doing, though. Besides, Lori and George told me not
to actually build a database. I just
felt like actually using the tool would help me to understand what we
wanted. It didn’t help much.
I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this yet, but I did get one
concrete assignment from Lori. She
wanted me to design the new LASER mug for them.
Tuesday night, I worked on a variety of designs, which you can see if you
click here. That was definitely fun. I like graphic design, in case you can’t
tell. I designed the border and the
buttons in the menu in the side frame on my site.
Today I decided to take a break from realistic
drawings. I drew a scene from Beauty
and the Beast, where Belle and the Beast are feeding the birds. That’s my favorite scene of that movie (which
is one of my all-time favorite movies).
I like it because it shows them beginning to fall in love with each
other, completely against their first impressions. “Love at first site” is usually a pretty
silly concept. I think it’s more amazing
when you’re surprised by love, like the people I know who are either now
married or engaged to be married. If
you’re out looking for love, it’s rarely going to turn up. That’s my philosophy, anyway. My friends weren’t “looking for love” and
they’ve found the most amazing relationships.
I’m quite content right now, waiting for “Mr. Right” to come along. I see no reason to become desperate or
impatient. I mean, if God wants me to
marry someone, He’ll bring us together!
Tonight was thankfully not a repeat of last week. I did get a ride with Beth and Leon to Bible
study. We stopped by their house first,
and I got a shot of their kitty, Eowyn. Yay for my digital
camera! For dinner, we had make-your-own
burritos. Sarah made this wonderful
black bean filling, and everyone loved it.
Mmm dinner was good!
Our Bible study focused on these parables:
"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he
not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to
complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it,
everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and
was not able to finish.'
"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against
another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with
ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If
he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way
off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not
give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
We talked for a long time about the sacrifices of being a
disciple of Christ. I suggested that the
second parable could be about dependency.
Just as the king in the story can’t win the battle on his own, we can’t
do anything on our own. Someone else
mentioned that “terms of peace” wouldn’t just mean “let’s shake hands and be
friends.” It meant that the king would
have to give up everything to the other king to plead for mercy. Just like that, we should surrender our lives
to God.
After Bible Study, I asked if I could get a group picture
of my Navigator friends. I wanted
everyone to be in the picture, including me.
Someone suggested I use the timer feature on the camera. I didn’t know how to use that yet, so Jeff
helped me to find that option. He
pressed the camera’s button, and it started flashing a red light to count down
until it would take the picture. I
wasn’t ready for it, so I wasn’t fast enough setting up the camera and running
into the picture. The camera went off,
and got a shot of me rushing into the group.
So I started the timer again, carefully positioned the camera, and ran
back into the group, on time this time!
This morning I tried to make the tree-style summary (my
first summary) into a set of questions.
I remembered Lori wanted to know how users would specify what they
wanted. So I supposed that a list of
questions would be the best thing for me to do.
I was still uncertain of what I was supposed to do, though. I printed out those questions and brought
them to the meeting I had scheduled with Lori, George, and Rachel. Once again, they just waited for me to start
explaining what I was up to. I gave them
the sheets I had printed out, and kind of stumbled along, not sure what to say
since I hadn’t really done anything. How
could I do anything when I was so unsure of what they wanted?
Lori stopped me in my fumbling and she started asking me
pointed questions. “If I wanted to sort
something, how would I choose to do it?
How would I choose to filter something?
What would I click on to get a summary in the first place?” Finally I started to understand what she was
asking for! She was talking about a user
interface! (If you don’t know what a
user interface is, it’s the way that a person interacts with their computer to
get things done. For instance, the user
interface of an email program usually has a button for writing a new message,
and another one to check your mail. When
you click on the “compose” button, a blank email pops up. When you click on the “inbox” button, you can
see the messages other people have sent you.
That kind of interaction is the interface of the email program.)
I totally had an “A-ha!” moment then and there. Lori just wanted me to plan out what the
summary would look like, what buttons had to be pushed, and how the program
would react. Immediately after the
meeting, I started sketching a few ideas in a notebook. When I showed them to her, she said “Yes,
that’s exactly what I’m looking for!
Keep working on it!” What a
relief to know I’m working in the right direction.
Next, we had a LASER meeting where Jamie did a PowerPoint
presentation. After he finished,
everyone applauded. Everyone was about
to leave when Lori showed my preliminary mug designs to everyone on the projector. She asked for comments. Some people thought that there should be more
red or orange or some sort of warm laser-ish
color. Lori didn’t like that. She wants calming, cool colors for their
mug. Besides, she likes teal and purple,
so those should be the colors of the mug.
It was cool to have some of my work reviewed by all of LASER, even if it
was just graphics.
Today I had walked to the lab because I had a ride to the
bowling party that the Navigators had planned.
Andy was going to pick me up to bring me there. First, he drove me to Allie’s house, where we
had pizza that Allie had made. She had
some leftover veggies from a stir-fry or something. The only cheese she had was cheddar, so she
was worried it would taste weird. But I
really liked it.
After we ate, we all headed for the bowling alley! Allie loaned me her socks, which had cute
little clovers on them. I was amazed
that they fit me, considering how big my feet are (I wear 11 or 12 in women’s
shoes) and how small hers were. I guess
the socks were too big for her.
Anyway, I had a lot of fun bowling. At the beginning, I wasn’t doing so
well. But maybe about a third into the
game I used a different ball, which seemed to make a huge difference. I started clearing out at least 8 of the pins
each time. The second game didn’t follow
that pattern though. I kept getting
gutter balls. After a trying to do
better, switching hands, and totally not succeeding, I decided to be stylistic
with it. What did I have to lose? I bowled with my eyes closed one time,
backwards another time, kicking the ball another time, and attempting to slide
across the floor (which would’ve been easier without the shoes). That was fun, and it made people laugh, which
was worth it :-).
After I got back from bowling last night, I stayed up
really late chatting online and writing in my journal. So this morning I slept in until 12:00. Anastasia and I had decided to see a movie (The
Terminal) today, so I needed to get ready quickly to meet her and Laylaa, who was also coming along.
Anastasia had left a message while I was asleep to meet her
at the Fleet bank at 1:00. I went to the
Fleet in the middle of town, trying to meet up with her. It turned out that Anastasia and Laylaa were at the Fleet near my house. After walking into the center of town, I
headed back there and met up with them.
We all strolled back into the middle of town, to the
Amherst Commons. This weekend there was
an event called “The Taste of Amherst.”
Many of the local restaurants set up booths in the Commons so people can
try different foods. It was pretty hot
outside, so I wanted something cool. I
got a portabella sandwich and some water, after looking over all the spicy,
foreign foods. I would have enjoyed that
other food if it wasn’t so hot outside.
After lunch, we still had plenty of time before our bus was
supposed to come. Laylaa
is a huge fan of books. Her tendency to
collect books from whatever bookstore will give them to her is familiar. She reminds me of my friend Julie, who had a
reputation for keeping a library in the trunk of her car!
We hung out in the book store, looking at chocolate
cookbooks and scuba diving pictures.
When it came time for our bus, we went out to the stop. I was fairly impatient on the bus because it
stopped at the mall and waited there forever even though no one was
coming. Anastasia and Laylaa laughed at my eagerness to get moving. They’re more used to buses than I am.
We got off the bus at Wal-Mart. “Oh, Valerie,” you say, “how could you stoop
so low?” Sorry, I’m still a loyal fan of
Wally World. Besides, I needed a memory
card and battery charger for my new digital camera. After I bought them, I was so eager to use
them that I tried prying that annoying plastic packaging open. Alas, scissors were required, but scissors I
lacked.
We headed over to
the mall where the theater was located next.
Anastasia and Laylaa suggested we stop at one
of the jewelry stores and see if they had scissors. Hallelujah they did! As soon as they opened it I wanted to try it
out. I felt like a little kid with a
Christmas present :-). So I snapped some
pictures of Anastasia and Laylaa as we walked into
the mall. They didn’t really appreciate
that very much, but I had fun with it anyway.
The Terminal was a really cute movie. It’s directed by Steven Spielberg, starring
Tom Hanks. I, like many people, really
enjoy Tom Hanks’ acting. He did a good
job acting like a man from some Eastern European country. Anastasia, being from Russia, could
understand some of what he said (he was supposed to have a “Krakosian”
accent). She could understand this
Russian guy in the movie completely. I
thought that was pretty neat.
After the movie, we got dinner at Antonio’s Pizza. They serve some good stuff there! Antonio’s is known around here for serving
really unique types of pizza. I got a
slice of Chicken Lasagna pizza, the day’s special. It had pasta sauce, feta cheese, lasagna
noodles (cooked, of course), lots of mozzarella, and chicken. Mmm I’m a huge fan
of lasagna – I’ve always understood Garfield in this way. So, needless to say, I enjoyed this pizza
immensely.
Last night, Sarah called to invite me to her church’s
service. I told her I’d like to go, and
besides, I didn’t have a ride to College Church since Beth and Leon had Leon’s
dad over. Sarah’s church service starts
a lot later than College Church, so I had
a lot of time to relax once I was ready to go.
As Sarah drove into downtown Amherst, she described her church
a little bit. It’s called Mercy House,
and they’re fairly small. They don’t
have a building yet, so they hold their services in the basement of Amherst
Public Library. The entrance is really
beautiful. There is a little garden, and
a nice stone wall as well as a fountain.
Such a pretty little corner tucked behind everything.
The church service reminded me of Covenant Christian
Church, which I go to back at school. It
was very small and predominately students.
There were probably 60 people there.
The sermon was actually given by one of the students. It really spoke to me personally, because it
was about boldly standing up for Christianity.
That is something I have been praying about a whole lot lately – that I
would have the courage to speak out as well as live out my faith. Here are my notes:
Christianity as an Individual
I should stand as an example to others, but I
should not stand
above others in pride. I want to stand up so I can point to the
One who gives me strength to stand.
-taking a stand as a leader
-not egotistical
(1) Take a stand for the Scriptures
I’m doing my best to memorize one verse a week
this summer
so that I will be prepared to answer people with
the Truth.
-get to know it
-be the authority
(2) Take a stand for the Gospel
I pray that I will not be shy about telling
people of Christ and
what He’s done for me. That’s what a witness does, after all.
- the world is hopeless without it
- be straightforward
(3) Take a stand for the Holy Spirit’s power
I’ve learned so much about the Holy Spirit at
Christ Covenant.
I have even been healed of psoriasis on my ear
through prayer.
- Peter and John pray for beggar, who is healed
- listen to His direction
- be a witness!
(4) Take a stand for the Name of Jesus
I pray that I won’t have the fear that seems to
hang over people
about the name of Jesus Christ.
- hold up the name that saves us
- He is foremost above us
Sarah and I went swimming again today after church. It was cooler outside than that day when we
first came. I dreaded the cold water,
but I was looking forward to swimming too much to let that stop me. Before we got in the water, we asked a
sunbather if she could take a picture of us.
She kindly agreed, and that’s the picture I posted on my site. Once again, Sarah boldly dashed into the
water, while I gradually immersed myself.
It felt really good once I got all the way in, though. Sarah said that swimming in lakes reminded
her of the movie, Ever After, where Danielle goes swimming and Leonardo da Vinci walked over the water in his “boat shoes,” totally
surprising her. “I should leave walking
on water to the Son of God. Fortunately,
I tripped over an angel.”
Sarah asked me who I would be if I could be any movie
character. She would be Danielle,
because she has such a strong spirit, but she’s still humble at the same
time. I had a hard time thinking of a
movie character I liked enough to want to be.
Actually, I started thinking of books instead. There are a lot of characters in books I
would love to be like. First, Elizabeth
Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.
She had to learn many of the lessons I’m still learning, in particular,
first impressions are a poor indication of what a person is really like. But my first impression of a person can
easily prejudice me to only notice things about that person that support my
assumption. I’m learning to let go of
original feelings on meeting people so that I can get to know the real person.
Another character that I love is Anne Shirley from Anne
of Green Gables. For one thing, I’ve
always related with her, my middle name being “Anne with an ‘e’” and my hair
being thick and red. I always liked her
spunk and spirit (she’s extremely funny without meaning to be), and her
spiteful attitude towards Gilbert Blythe in the beginning of the book reminds
me of my attitude towards boys growing up, which has thankfully changed since
then. Anne is so human in her tendency
to make silly mistakes like forgetting to add flour to her cake or accidentally
intoxicating her best friend, Diana.
She’s also an avid reader, which is a huge plus! ;-)
Though she is young, I really look up to Sarah Crewe in The
Little Princess. Sarah has a calm,
quiet way of holding fast in the most dire of circumstances. While she is forced to be a servant, she
keeps her spirits by pretending she’s a princess in bondage. The amazing thing about this story is that it
can be so easily applied to the Christian life.
I am an adopted child of God, the King of kings. That definitely makes me qualify as a
princess. But, while Sarah pretended to
be a princess, she didn’t use this as a source of pride, but of fortitude. Remembering Whose child I am is definitely an
encouragement, because no matter what happens, that will not change. “For I am convinced that neither life nor
death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any
powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be
able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39 (my favorite verses).
After swimming, Sarah suggested we go to Bueno y Sano for burritos.
It’s a local restaurant that serves huge, custom burritos. I got one with spinach and black beans in
it. Wow, she wasn’t joking when she said
they were huge! I didn’t even get the
Grande size! We went behind the
restaurant to a sort of courtyard and sat on a bench to eat. There were tiny sparrows hopping right up to
our feet, obviously used to humans as a source of food. I had fun throwing bits of rice out for
them. Somehow I like sparrows a lot
better than pigeons and especially seagulls, even if they are all beggars.
I asked Sarah about her life as a Christian. Her story sounded similar to mine, that she
had grown up in a Christian home with a good family, but it took a long time
before she really embraced Christianity.
I loved hearing that, because there are a lot of people who seem to just
“go with the flow” and never really decide firmly what they believe. I was like that until college. Though some people said that college was
dangerous and I could stray from my faith there, all it did was strengthen
me! Praise the Lord!
Sarah had to go work on moving out of her apartment to
prepare for an internship with the Nestle Company. After she brought me back to my room I really
didn’t want to stay inside. It was one
of the most gorgeous days I’ve ever seen.
Here I had a bike, a beautiful day and a completely free afternoon. What better to do than go exploring? Robin had told me about this path that goes
through the back of our neighborhood, so I set out to find it. Digital camera in tow, I boldly steered my
bike off the street into a little bit of woods (which a British person would
probably call a “copse”) at the end of Cottage Street. The woods were really just a thin strip of
trees in front of a hayfield. There was
a little path leading through the field and down to…a preschool? I slowly pedaled into the parking lot, but no
one was there. I heard some yelling of
children playing, so I rode over to the edge of the parking lot where it was
coming from. There were some middle
school aged girls practicing softball. I
don’t see many people in Raleigh playing softball. I mean, people do play it, but soccer seems
to reign supreme among kids.
After watching the girls for a while, I headed to the
entrance of the parking lot. Across the
street was a cemetery. Robin told me the
trail went behind a cemetery, so I started up the hill there. I was excited to use my “super-low” gear on
my bike. It makes climbing hills a
breeze. Of course, I don’t go much
faster than I would if I were walking, but it’s fun anyway.
It was kind of hard to find the trail from the
cemetery. I glided slowly through,
reading the tombstones and looking for a trail leading out. I found one that went steeply downhill, but
there was a “Private Property” sign there.
When I turned back, I saw another trail to the right. This trail lead away from the cemetery, but
there were still some gravestones in the woods, overgrown with ivy. Creepy, huh?
One tombstone was shaped like a bench.
Who would want to sit on someone’s grave? Weird.
The path I was on went mainly downhill. That makes sense, considering the hill I
climbed to get here. I just rolled
along, trying not to hit too many roots and rocks. It was really bumpy but lots of fun. I’m thankful for my front wheel shocks, cause
that trip would’ve been even more rough without them. At one point everything was smooth pine
needles and everything was nice until suddenly there was a group of roots I
couldn’t see underneath the needles. My
arms jiggled when I went over that!
The way I chose curved around and lead me right back to the
entrance of the cemetery. I got back on
the road and headed up to North Pleasant Street, which goes through
downtown. I headed north, away from
town. First I saw some dorms on my left,
then I saw a neighborhood on my right. I
wanted to see the houses and maybe the people who live in them, so I turned
down that road. The houses were very
neat and the gardens were well-kept.
There were some kids rollerblading, or playing basketball or catch
outside. One little boy said hi to me as
I passed by. Of course the houses were
smaller than those in North Raleigh, but I thought it was a really nice place.
After the neighborhood, I headed further up North
Pleasant. I saw an open space that
looked sort of like a farm on the right, so I turned onto that street. I saw a horse trailer and an open pasture and
a garden labeled “Recycling Facility” or something like that, then beyond that
there was this big empty building with lots of old construction material around
it. I have no idea what all of it was
for, but it was cool to look around. And
there was an awesome view from there of the mountains in the distance.
On the way back, I decided to check out the dorms I had
passed by earlier. There were huge,
empty parking lots, which were fun to ride through. At the end of one of the parking lots was a
trail covered with black gravel. Hmm,
where does this lead to? I picked up my
bike over the curb and plunged ahead, ready for wherever it would lead. The path was very pretty – lined with plants
and wildflowers, and after a while the path itself was covered in grass instead
of gravel. I came to the end of the
path, which ran straight into a road.
Thankfully, that was not really the end, because there was another path
that swung to the right. But here where
it lead into the road there was a lovely, thick patch of clover. I thought this would be a nice place for some
pictures. So I took a lot of
self-portraits there, which can be found on my “On the Town” page.
After I took some pictures and looked at all the beautiful
flowers, I got on my bike and headed back to the main road. On the way back, I remembered that Rachel
lived on this road. I found her house
easily, parked my bike, walked up to the door, and knocked. Laylaa answered
(she was living with Rachel at the time) and told me Rachel and Jamie were out
at one of their parents’ church. Still,
I came inside to talk to Laylaa for a while (and to
get a cup of lemonade :-) ). She told me
she was working on moving out, so she had piles of books and other things in
the process of being packed into boxes.
I was still talking to Laylaa
when Jamie and Rachel drove up! They had
just gotten back from Rachel’s surprise bridal shower! Jamie told me it was hard to keep himself
from giving away the secret. Well, since
they’d just gotten back from that bridal shower, their cars (Jamie’s mom, and I
think his sister, had come along) were full of presents. Jamie and Rachel were surprised to see me, of
course. They were ecstatic, though, that
I came at such a convenient time to help them carry in the presents! I was glad to help, and I got a cookie and
some more lemonade as well! Not a bad
deal, if I do say so myself.
After all of these vague, confusing meetings I’d been
having, today was like a sigh of relief.
Today I had a chance to show the beginnings of my user-interface design
to George and Lori. And today, I finally
heard something like, “Yes, that’s exactly what we’re looking for! Keep up the good work!” Oh, it felt so good to know I was doing what
they wanted. They gave me more
suggestions for improvements on my work, but this time I didn’t get that
frustrating feeling that I was totally working in the wrong direction. Needless to say, I was happy. :-)
This morning, I made it all the way to the lab before I
realized I had left my bike lock back at the house. Bummer!
I didn’t want to leave my bike out for anyone to take, and to bring it
in I would have to drag it up 3 flights of stairs. (Ok, there’s an elevator, but I didn’t think
of that.) So there was nothing left for
me to do but turn around and hurry right back to the house (which is an uphill
route, you may recall).
A few days ago, Lori had invited me to eat lunch with her
today. She came into the lab to bring me
to lunch, and saw that I had forgotten and brought my own lunch. It was no big deal to me, I’d just save that
for tomorrow. I tried to find my wallet,
but Lori told me she’d be treating me.
How nice! :-)
Lori asked me if I minded going to Judie’s for lunch. I’d never been there, and I want to try lots
of places here, so I said I’d love to go.
When we got outside, it was raining a bit. I realized when we got into Lori’s car that I
haven’t been in a car in a long time.
Ok, well I do get rides to church and Bible study, but it struck me how
rarely I’d been in a car since I got here!
I go everywhere by bike or bus or walking. It’s pretty cool, actually, surviving without
a car. I don’t have a car at Western
either, but I don’t go as many places on my own as I do here. I love the independence and simplicity of a
bike. No gas expenses! The only fuel I need is food, which I’m quite
happy to eat :-). And it’s a free
exercise program as well. I feel like
I’m getting really fit here!
Lori told me on the way that Judie’s serves “strange
combinations” of foods. I wasn’t so sure
what she meant by that, but I was excited to find out. She said her husband doesn’t like that
restaurant, so she brings other people there whenever they’re willing. My parents always encouraged trying new
foods, and now I love to try anything unique.
On the way to the restaurant, suddenly it started raining
like mad. Lori parked in a parking lot a
little ways from the store, then we both surveyed the weather. It was one of those crazy summer downpours
where the sky seems to be opening up and “lloviendo a
cántaros,” as they would say in Spanish. We sat and waited for the rain to subside,
but it was no use. Lori didn’t want to
walk through that rain, even if we did have our umbrellas with us. She started the car up again and drove to the
front of the restaurant where, miracle of miracles, there was an empty space! She handed me some quarters and asked me to
put them in the parking meter while she got her stuff. I’ve never used a parking meter in my life,
but it wasn’t too hart to figure out. I
ran under the shelter outside Judies and Lori came up soon afterwards. We were both cold and fairly wet. I was ready to eat something warm! The menu definitely confirmed what Lori said
about their food. What interesting
sandwiches they offered! It took me
quite a while to choose, but I ended up taking Lori’s suggestion of one of her
favorites. Since I was chilled, I also
wanted some soup. I ordered split pea
soup with spinach (I’ve never had spinach in soup before!) and a sandwich with
(I kid you not) curry chicken, cranberry sauce, peanuts, raisins, and bananas
on it! It was so good!
After work today, Yao and I started talking and we had a
long conversation. It started out with
me trying to help her to say the word “red.”
She kept saying something that sounded like “ride.” I think they don’t have the “eh” sound in
Mandarin. I tried to help her by giving
her some other words with the same vowel sound – like “get” and “pen.” Actually I told her to repeat “Get the red
pen” to practice. Also, Yao told me she
thought my drawings were “funny.” I told
her that was a strange way to describe them, but if she thought they were funny
she could say it. Yao learned that from
the TV show “Friends,” where she said they use the word “funny” a lot for more
situations than something that’s humorous.
I think she meant that my art was interesting or unique, since people
use the word “funny” when they really mean it’s odd, not always that it makes
them want to laugh.
I started asking Yao about Chinese cooking, and what she
thought of our Americanized Chinese food.
I told her about stir-frying, and she thought it was strange that we
don’t cook our vegetables fully. She
thinks we eat our “Chinese” vegetables too raw.
Also, they don’t usually mix their rice with the rest of their food,
like we do in stir-fries.
Yao asked me what the difference was between “legend” and
“tale.” She’d seen the movie Troy, and
she’d described it as a Greek tale, which apparently confused people. I told her that “tale” makes me think of
local stories and tall tales like Paul Bunyan.
I started describing the story of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe,
using the whiteboard to illustrate the characters. There was one story where Paul Bunyan made
“flapjacks” for all of the lumberjacks. Yao thought that was extremely nice of
him.
Then Yao started telling me about a Chinese legend about a
monkey man who tried stealing food from heaven.
He was thrown down to earth and banished to a cave for 500 years. At the end of 500 years, a monk rescued him
from the cave. For this, the monkey man
became the monk’s escort into India so he could learn about Buddhism. As Yao told the story, I made some simple
sketches of the characters on the whiteboard, which included the monkey man
(body of a man and head of a monkey), the monk, and the monkey man’s brother
(who had the head of a pig). I also drew monkey man’s magic staff, which he
could shrink or expand at will, so he could store it in his ear or use it to
fight monsters. This whole legend is
very popular in China, and there are cartoons with episodes from this journey. The story is called “Journey into the West.”
My sister, Michelle, has been accepted at the Coast Guard
Academy. It was a long wait to find out
whether she was in or not. She found out
just a couple days before graduating!
She says that waiting period, though difficult, was a learning period
for her. Michelle had started out
feeling in a way like she could plan her life out ahead of her and direct her
future. But because she had to wait so
long to find out whether she was accepted in the Academy, she had to let go of
her future and give it to God. It wasn’t
until she completely gave up her hopes, dreams, and expectations that she found
out they had all come true in one phone call!
It was so amazing to come home and find my sister with tears in her eyes
and a triumphant smile on her face. The
CGA is extremely selective, and she only got in by God’s grace, through a
personal interview early in the process.
I am so excited for her!
Michelle’s “swearing in” at the Academy is next week, on
Monday. Almost my whole family is coming
up for this! The Coast Guard Academy is
in New London, Connecticut, less than 2 hours from Amherst! Isn’t it remarkable that of all the places in
the USA God could have placed me for the summer, I’m in the best place to see
Michelle swear in? Thank you, God!
Anyway, before I came into work, I went to the bus station
to buy my ticket down to Connecticut.
The closest place I could go was Foxwoods
Casino, heh heh. My bus was supposed to leave at 7:00
tomorrow. After work, I asked
Rachel and Jamie if they could drive me to Bible study. They said sure, but they were going to eat
dinner with Deb from the Alpha Bible study.
Deb said it was fine if I came along, so I happily joined them.
Jamie and Rachel picked me up from the house and we headed
into Northampton. We got there really
early. See, everyone has been used to
needing extra time to get to Northampton because the bridge over the
Connecticut river has been under construction for the past several years. What do you know, but they finished the
construction and cleared out the bridge just for my arrival! How nice of those construction guys!
Since we got to Northampton early, we toured town little
bit. Jamie pointed out an ice-cream shop
called “Harrel’s.”
Rachel loves their ice-cream called “Purple Cow,” which contains black
raspberries and white and dark chocolate chunks. Jamie likes the “Chocolate Pudding” flavor,
which I think probably describes itself pretty well.
When it came near to the time to meet Deb, we headed down
to the sushi restaurant. It was a cool
setup inside. We sat at an island in the
middle of the restaurant. In the center
of the island was an open area for the chef to work. We had a good view of him making sushi. Right in front of us were little boats that
would carry your food to you. The boats
were floating around in a moat around the island. We couldn’t figure out whether they were
actually floating or attached to each other.
Since no one was at the island but us, I grabbed one of the boats and
allowed the rest of them to back up behind it.
Yup, they’d made a current in the moat, and the boats were being carried
along by that. Jamie and Rachel were
shocked that I would be so bold as to actually test our conjectures. Deb thought it was awesome, and said that
she’d do the same sort of thing herself :-).
I’ve never had as much sushi as I did that night. It was really good, actually. I liked the rice and seaweed. Jamie and Rachel made a whole meal out of
sushi, but Deb and I decided to order from the menu. I got chicken teriyaki and she got beef
teriyaki, cause neither of us could decide which we wanted. We sampled from each other’s plates too. I had a lot of leftovers afterwards.
The Bible study tonight was an intro to a series on Romans
9-11. Tonight our leader reviewed Romans
1-8 quickly to help us know where we were coming from.
After Bible study, all of us were hankering for some
ice-cream. Jamie had made Harrell’s
sound really good, and Rachel made some homemade strawberry sorbet sound
delicious as well. They asked me which I
would rather. What a hard choice! Jamie made it easier by pointing out that
Harrell’s will always be there, but the strawberry sorbet wouldn’t. It was decided that we would head to Rachel’s
for the sorbet.
Mmm I was glad with my
choice. Besides, it gave me a chance to
watch a tape of this show called “Good Eats” that they’ve been talking about
all the time. Rachel put it accurately
when she said it’s like “Bill Nye the Science Guy” doing a cooking show. This show is totally nutty, but full of
scientific facts about why cooking works the way it does. There are cool illustrations and random bits
of information here and there. Half the
time I was shaking my head, but it was funny anyway. It definitely seemed to fit Jamie’s
personality :-).
Well, today I completely meant to get up at 6:00 and be at
the bus stop in time for my 7:00 bus.
Yeah, right. I went to bed way
too late last night because I was up packing and cleaning up my room. So when the alarm rang this morning, I turned
it off and rolled over, thinking I’d stay in bed for a couple more minutes. Yeah, right again! I thought I’d only been dozing for a couple
of minutes, when I looked at the clock and saw 6:55! Oh no!
I leapt out of bed, threw on my clothes, ran upstairs and
woke up Brendan asking for a ride. He
good-naturedly stumbled out of bed and drove me to the bus stop. I was afraid I was too late. Yeah, there was no bus there when we came
over the hill at 7:05. Bummer! I went inside the office to ask the guy if
the bus really had left. He told me
“Yup, they’re usually pretty well on time.”
Grr! I
had these tickets, now what was I going to do?
The ticket guy told me the date didn’t matter, so I could just leave
tomorrow. Well, that was quite a relief,
but still it meant I couldn’t follow my original plan. I was also really embarrassed that I’d slept
in.
As soon as I got back to my room, I called Dad to make sure
he knew I wouldn’t be arriving today.
Thankfully, he was very calm, while I was feeling frazzled. Actually, it would work out better this way,
since the shuttle that would bring me to the hotel wouldn’t come to pick me up
until 4:00 pm. I would’ve sat around at
the casino from 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon! I guess God knew what He was doing when He
allowed me to sleep that extra hour!
Not
wanting to repeat yesterday’s mistake, I made sure I was in bed at 10:00
tonight. I slept fitfully, I guess
because I was so worried about missing the bus again. I got up at 5:30 and was ready to leave for
the bus stop at 6:00. Loaded down with
my back pack and my big duffel bag, I trudged slowly down the road into
town. I got to the bus stop at 6:30 and
watched the town wake up.
The
bus arrived at 7, and sure enough, the bus driver didn’t glance at the date on
my ticket. I arrived at Foxwoods Casino at
9:45, and I was handed my “bonus ticket,” which included free gambling
points and a free meal at the buffet.
Since I had no use for the gambling points, I just handed that part of
my ticket to the first person that passed by me. I was surprised that inside the casino
everyone “lit up.” I’m so used to strict
no-smoking rules in public places.
After
wandering a bit, I found the payphones and called Dad’s cell phone. We found out that Foxwoods
was right in between the hotel where they were staying and the Coast Guard
Academy! Wow, there’s another thing that
God worked out wonderfully! I went to
the fancy hotel part of the casino (where people weren’t smoking, thankfully)
and watched for our car.
Oh, I was so happy when I saw our big blue van rumble up in
front of the hotel! I hurried out as
best I could while weighed down with my bags.
Yay, I was so glad to see Mom and Dad and
Bonnie and Carrie and Tyler! And
Michelle! She’s my best friend at
home! It’s so fun to get a greeting from
such a big group of people :-) (and that wasn’t even everyone!). Emily was at summer camp, and Jessica
couldn’t come up this time.
Following our joyous reunion, we all headed to the Coast
Guard Academy. The first thing we saw
there was the CGA Museum, while Michelle went to talk to the cross-country
coach. Carrie and I messed around with
the kiddie crafts that were set out there. Of course, Carrie didn’t want to follow
convention and make the crafts according to the instructions. Oh, no she wanted to make up her own
stuff. (It’s almost creepy how much she
reminds me of myself sometimes!)
Dad came in to tell us it was time to move on. We met Lieutenant Bennett, who was quite
instrumental in Michelle getting into the CGA.
He interviewed Michelle before she’d even started applying, and
thankfully she made a good impression.
We ate lunch with him, and he told us how much he loved his life with
the Coast Guard. Meanwhile, Tyler ate a
million slices of pizza. I don’t know
where he puts all that food.
Next, we met up with a tour of the Academy. Tyler tried skateboarding along the way. He got away with it for a while, but on one
of the main roads, an officer stopped him and told him he had to carry his board
unless he wore a helmet. Oops. The campus was very pretty, with a river
right in their backyard!
Once the tour ended, Michelle wanted to talk to someone
else. We were entertained meanwhile by a
man named Knowles whose rank I never learned.
He was a hilarious, good-natured person (which I honestly didn’t expect
of someone in uniform…silly stereotypes).
He joked around a lot with Bonnie and described “Spirit Missions” to
us. Spirit Missions is the fancy name
for practical jokes, and apparently he was a big jokester himself. He was very careful to explain, however, that
while certain jokes are funny and harmless, you have to make sure not to
endanger anyone with what you’re doing.
Carrie was so impressed by Knowles that she wrote him a note on one of
the business cards in the office. “You
need a therapist. Here’s a number for
you: 222-2222.” We all about died
laughing. Carrie can be surprising
sometimes in her spontaneous humor!
I stayed in the hotel with my family last night. There were only 2 double beds and a pull out
couch for 7 people – Mom, Dad, me, Michelle, Carrie, Tyler, and Bonnie. It was kind of cramped, but we’ve all fit
into a popup camper before, so we’re used to it!
This morning I couldn’t find my flip-flops, so I came down
to breakfast barefoot. No big deal,
usually. Well, today they had the “shoe
police” out on patrol. This lady working
there told two little girls they needed to put on shoes if they wanted breakfast. I hoped that maybe I could slip by without
her noticing my shoeless state. Nope,
she caught me too! Mom loaned me her
flip-flops while she sat at the table so I could get some food.
Today we’d planned a trip to Amherst! We had a difficult time getting there,
because we got turned around in Hartford with all their crazy exits
crisscrossing over each other.
Thankfully we managed to get out of that maze and back on the road.
Our first stop was my house, so we could park the van and
walk into town for lunch. It was cool
showing everyone my (thankfully clean) room and the house in general. I called Anastasia to invite her to meet us
for lunch, and we all set out for Antonio’s.
Anastasia was right outside the restaurant when we got
there. It was quite a crowded day. My siblings were a little bit daunted by the
“downtown” setting, with people milling about at an art show that was happening
(not to mention the strange people that often wander Amherst). Antonio’s itself was tons more crowded than
when I went before. Dad told us we could
each get two slices, and my siblings took their time browsing the available
flavors. It’s funny, I think being with
my family gives me a bigger appetite. I
felt like ordering two slices myself, when one would’ve normally been
sufficient.
Since there was no room in the restaurant or on the
sidewalk benches, we headed to the Commons to eat our pizza. We had so many slices that we filled up two
boxes! We sat on the wood border
surrounding a tree and chowed down. Even Mom enjoyed her slice, because it had
the same toppings she puts on homemade pizza (such as kidney beans).
We decided that after lunch we would go hiking. We invited Anastasia to come along, and she
happily agreed. First, we headed back to
the house to get the van, while Anastasia went back to the place she was
staying. Once Tyler and Brendan had
traded some skating tricks, we tumbled back into the van to see my lab and pick
up Anastasia. Going to the LASER lab was
a quick trip, just to see my cubicle and my drawings.
Next, we went to Anastasia’s place, and she joined us in
the van. I gave Dad directions to the
Robert Frost Trail so we could go walk off our pizza! This trail is not clear, because there’s
little undergrowth to show which parts “wanted wear” and which were the actual
path. We kind of made up our own path as
we went, “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come
back.” Well Dad kept asking if I knew
where I was going, and I told him I was just taking the Road Less
Traveled. Thankfully, I am telling this
with a happy sigh, and not one of regret.
Taking the road less traveled by did make all the difference, because we
ran into a car graveyard! You know, it
was one of those sections of the woods where all these really old cars have
been abandoned. It was really neat. We all enjoyed making up stories for how the
cars got there, and of course, Dad started explaining how an engine works and
everything. (he takes any chance to fulfill his role as “home-school dad” heehee)
When we finished hiking, it was time for dinner. Since we didn’t have any food with us, and
eating out is so expensive with so many people, we headed to the grocery store
to get some sandwich supplies. Anastasia
was enjoying herself while hanging out with us, so she came along, too. When Mom hopped on the back of the shopping
cart and coasted along, Anastasia exclaimed, “My mom would never do that!”
Mom replied, “Oh, I do that in the parking lot all the
time! I just tell people it’s my goal to
never get old!” :-) My sentiments
exactly.
We went to a touristy town called Mystic Seaport
today. My family met up with another
Coast Guard family there. Their son,
Zach was also entering as a “fourth class” cadet (the Coast Guard term for
“freshman”). At Mystic Seaport we
wandered the little shops. I saw a
bakery just for dogs, and I just had to go in.
It was so overpriced and cheesy, but how could I resist taking a
look? They had all these fancy dog
treats on display behind glass like the muffins and cookies you’d find in a
bakery.
Later on we went into a “Masonic Temple.” I’d never heard of these things before. It’s a fraternity for grown men. I didn’t know they had fraternities outside
college. This doesn’t have that same
connotations of careless party animals, but instead they do a lot of volunteer
work to help society. Their group had
been around for more than 100 years, and the furniture in their meeting room
upstairs was exquisite and antique. I
definitely got a view of another side of society I wasn’t aware of before.
We were all quite impressed by the drawbridge in town. Heh heh, we were just another silly tourist family. I thought it was interesting to see all the
cars and pedestrians backed up on either side.
When we got back from Mystic Seaport, we got ready for a
Coast Guard reception that was being held for the new cadets and their
families. Michelle wanted to look her
absolute best. This was her last night
as a civilian! We were pretty late
because she was taking time with her hair and makeup (though it wasn’t the sort
of event that has a set beginning and end).
Nice hair and makeup is a commodity she won’t have much time for at the
CGA.
While we were walking to the reception from the parking
lot, what should we see but a family of skunks!
Not one skunk, but five or six!
The skunks were so funny – it was a mom with her little babies. I’ve never seen a skunk in the wild in my life! I don’t think any of my family has
either. We were all snapping pictures
and laughing (silly tourist family again). Carrie and Bonnie got way closer
than I would’ve dared (thank Heaven they weren’t sprayed – ick!).
Things were crowded inside the reception. Michelle introduced me to some guys she had
met online. It was a little weird
shaking hands with someone for the first time and hearing “Yeah, I recognize
you. Michelle sent me your
picture!” (She had sent him a photo of
the two of us together) Ah, the wonders
of the internet…
The new CGA students form a battalion, and this battalion
is divided up into three companies: X-Ray, Yankee, and Zulu. In turn, each company is divided into three
platoons. Michelle is in Yankee 3. These are the people with whom she will be
spending the next seven weeks. Michelle
wanted to meet her platoon-mates, understandably. So the two of us prowled the room in search
of a nametag with “Y-3” written on it.
There were a lot of false alarms with “Y-2” and “X-3” nametags, but we
did manage to find a few Yankee 3’s.
These kids are impressive – very respectful and polite, if you get what
I mean. Only one guy out of the many
people we met used foul language.
Michelle will be spending her time with people who are above-average in
every way. I hope this will be inspiring
to her, and not discouraging. She has a
difficult summer ahead of her.
Today is Michelle’s day.
Today, she swears into the Coast Guard Academy and leaves her status as
a mere citizen behind. Today is the day
many families have been bracing themselves for, as another one “flies the
nest.”
I woke up at 6:30 so I could be there for Michelle’s
reporting in. We shot a few photos, then
she had to sign in at a desk and join her platoon in a line drawn on the
pavement. Michelle really looked the
part, standing alert with her luggage ready at hand for the moment Yankee 3 was
called. Poor Mom cried as Chelle’s cadres (the upper classmen who direct the new
cadets) strode out and told the platoon in less-than-nice tones to pick up
their bags and walk as quickly as possible into the quad. Mom told me it reminded her of prison, the
way that the cadre stood guard over the “swabs” (the name for new students). I was glad I was there to hug her when she
got upset.
After the swabs were rushed in, the parents were directed
to a reception with coffee and doughnuts and lots of information booths. I was excited to see a booth for “Officer’s
Christian Fellowship,” which is the military version of a campus ministry. There were all these Coast Guard parent
clubs, which Mom and Dad thought about joining.
This is an obsession for some parents!
Dad showed his support by buying a hat that said “Coast Guard Dad.” Mom signed up for a “Cadet Cake,” which is a
program that delivers personalized cakes to cadets on special events.
At 9:00, informational meetings for parents began. We all streamed into an auditorium, where we
were briefly addressed by important people who I can’t remember. Then the leader of the first class (like a
senior class president, I guess) came forward for questions. These questions got really old, really fast. The main topics were “How do I get money to
my swab?” and “How soon will I be able to meet my swab?” Both of these questions were pointless,
anyway. The swabs don’t need any money,
considering everything they need is issued to them, and they have absolutely no
time to shop. Also, the parents had been
given schedules that told them when their students would be released. They just wanted to get around the schedule
and sneak in a meeting whenever they could.
Mom, Dad, and I were falling asleep by the end.
When we finally got out of that meeting, we headed back to
the hotel. Everyone took naps or hung
out in the pool until 2:00, when we were leaving to see Michelle’s official
swearing in. We were about to leave when
we realized Emily wasn’t in the van. I rushed
in to get her from the Jacuzzi and she got dressed in record time.
There was already a large crowd when we made it to the road
from which we would watch the ceremony.
The best space we could find was on the curb. Then we occupied ourselves by peering up and
down the street, trying to figure out where the swabs would be coming
from. I spotted a group of people in
floppy gym shorts and t-shirts and guessed that must be them. No one believed me. Mom said that the swabs should be wearing
Coast Guard uniforms, not workout clothes.
Well, it turned out my guess was right.
To reinforce the humbling process, the swabs are made to wear these
none-too-attractive outfits with shorts almost knee-length, socks pulled up
over their shins, and floppy t-shirts tucked in. The nice thing is, all of them are wearing
the same thing, so they get to look dopey together.
The ceremony began with “colors,” which is the name for the
presentation of the flags. Three cadets
marched in with the American flag and two other flags. Everyone stood in respect while this
happened, and as the flags passed anyone in uniform, they saluted to it while
it was in their sight.
Next, the swabs marched in, divided into companies, with
the companies divided into their platoons.
It was impossible to pick out any individual person. They all had the same clothes, and everyone
had a hat on. The only way you could
tell girls from guys was by spotting a bun sticking out the back of the
hat. We found Yankee 3 easily enough,
but I’m not sure if I found Michelle.
The man directing the ceremony read vows to the swabs, to
which most of them replied “I do” (they weren’t really prompted to
respond). When told to stand “at ease,”
most of the swabs just stayed stiff.
They had to be told twice to relax.
I guess they just had so much going on in their minds (not to mention
they’d only had one day of training so far).
When the ceremony was over, the swabs lined up on bleachers for their
class picture. They were told to take
off their hats, and all of the families were suddenly able to find their
child. It was nice to spot Michelle!
After their photo, the swabs were released to say goodbye
to their families for exactly 15 minutes, no more and no less. As the families swarmed to meet their
children, I’m thankful we found Michelle quickly. We all laughed at her clothes and asked her a
billion questions about her first day.
She told us it’d been ok so far, but that the cadre expected her to know
their names already, and she’d been forced to drink tons of water. Michelle was one of the later students in
returning to her platoon, as we got a final hug and family picture. One of the waiting platoons started singing a
senseless song to aggravate the platoons that were still missing people:
We’re all sitting like ants on a rotten log
Ants on a rotten log
Ants on a rotten log
We’re all sitting like ants on a rotten log
Waiting for our classmates, sir!
(To the tune of “I Know A
Song That Gets On Everybody’s Nerves,” though the meter doesn’t fit)
We followed Michelle’s platoon as it marched down the
street, directed by their cadre’s variation of “left, right, left” (some had
quite catchy beats). After that last
look at her (and a lot of time waiting for Mom and Dad to talk to other CGA
parents) we drove to the grocery store to get more sandwich fixings. I absolutely insisted on buying a green
pepper, which is my favorite veggie and tastes wonderful on sandwiches. Mom thought no one would want any, but after
the big deal I made out of smelling it (I just love the way a green pepper
smells) and slicing it for my sandwich, everyone else wanted to try it
too. The whole thing was finished off,
as was the half-gallon of cookies ’n cream ice-cream that Dad bought :-).
It was time for the family to start their 15-hour drive
back to Raleigh after dinner. The only
person who stayed was Emily, who was going to fly back tomorrow. We were going to spend Tuesday hanging out
together, which we haven’t done much before.
Emily and I spent the night in the hotel room alone. This was our first time in a different city
(not to mention state) on our own! It
was pretty neat! I got up before Emily
did and spent my time flipping channels on the TV. Television really is quite worthless most of
the time. I rarely find anything more
than remotely interesting on there. Even
the shows that I’ve liked don’t measure up to a good movie. There’s just something about the medium of
television that makes me feel like I’m spacing out and allowing my brains to fry. Ok, I should let up a little. After all, I do like shows like “Full House”
and “The Cosby Show” sometimes. And I’ve
always liked “Nova.” At least “Nova” is
educational.
When Emily woke up, we went down for breakfast, careful to
wear our shoes this time and avoid the wrath of the shoe police. While we were already in the lobby, we asked
the receptionist where some good touristy spots were in the area. She suggested Mystic Seaport, where we’d
already been. Besides, we wanted to go
somewhere that didn’t require a cab. So
she told us about Mohegan Park, which was walking distance (if a little far)
from the hotel. We decided that would be
the best choice, so we asked her for directions. She drew a map for us, but she didn’t seem to
know any road names. We took our chances
anyway and set off on foot, ready for an adventure.
As we passed by an old, abandoned house, we wanted to think
of a story about it. Since I’d just
finished reading To Kill A Mockingbird, the first thing that came to
mind was that this could be Boo Radley’s house. There was a small house with a screened-in
porch across the street that could easily pass for Scout and Jem’s house. I could
picture the brother and sister sleeping in cots on the porch to escape the
Southern summer heat.
Further on down the road, we came to a place where some
rocks stood high above the street, forming something of a short cliff. Emily decided we should climb up the rocks
and see what was up there. Crazy
girl. There were trees hanging over the
rocks, and some of the rocks had moss thick as shag carpet on them. Emily climbed right up to the top. I climbed part of the way, then went back
down to take a picture of her. She looks
like a monkey in the photo.
After Emily let out her inner Tarzana, we went across the
street to the Stop n’ Shop there. We
hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so we wanted to buy some snacks. On the way into the store, we stopped in the
so-called “mall” (more like 4 shops with an indoor hallway!) and played around
on those little rocking horse things that cost 50 cents. Emily got in the boat, and I sat on the car
(no leg room :-) ) while a passerby took our picture. At Stop n’ Shop I bought some dinosaur-shaped
fruit snacks because I’d gotten into a little-kid mood.
We hit the road again, but we weren’t totally sure if we
were going in the right direction. We
stopped in a flower and gift shop to ask for directions. The old ladies in the shop were doubtful
about us walking that distance – until we told them how far we’d already
come. When they heard that, they just
laughed and told us, “Oh, if you’ve made it this far, it won’t be so bad to get
to the park. You’re young! Exercise is good for you!” We thanked them and continued our journey.
Everyone had been telling us what a hill we’d have to climb
to get to Mohegan park. I didn’t think
it’d be that bad – after all, at school I live at the top of Reynolds hill and
climb it multiple times a day! Well, it was
that bad. It wasn’t so steep as it was long. We were tired out, and thought we’d gotten to
the park at the top when we saw a baseball field and lots of kids running
around. Nope, it was just the middle
school. We had to climb yet another hill
to get to the park! But we’d made it
that far, so there was no use in turning back.
So we trudged determinedly up the last hill, extremely relieved to reach
the sign saying “Mohegan Park.” Man, we
were exhausted! We wanted a picture of
both of us at the sign, but no one else was around. I had the idea that we could take two
pictures, one with me in it, and one with Emily. Then I could combine the two on my
computer. You can see the result here.
In the park there was a beautiful pond with fairly clear
water and a nice fountain in the center.
Emily spent a long time wading in, trying to figure out what a “blue
thing” was underneath the water. After
poking around a lot with a stick, she pulled out a plastic Shrek
2 watch, the kind you get in a cereal box.
The park was very pretty, and we took a few pictures while
we were there. However, we needed to be
back at the hotel on time to catch the shuttle to our respective casinos (the
casinos were our hubs of transportation).
Emily asked someone for directions out of the park, in hopes of finding
a quicker exit. I told her I thought we
should go out the way we came in, but she can be more forceful (and firm in her
opinion) than me. I’d rather not tangle
with her, but I told her as we were leaving out of the opposite side of the
park, “Short cuts make long delays.”
Well, suffice it to say we were going completely the wrong way, so when
we asked someone else for directions, he told us the best way to get where we were
going was back through the park again.
Oh well. I was getting fairly
annoyed, but I tried to control myself.
I know Emily felt really bad for leading in the wrong direction. She’d just had one of those “feelings” that
it was the right way. (I’ve had that problem too, with telling my left from my
right! Honest!)
Anyway, we were understandably afraid we wouldn’t make it
in time to the hotel. Maybe, just maybe,
we could find some kind soul who could at least drive us to the bottom of
Mohegan hill. We spotted a lady walking
to the parking lot with her little daughter and read that as a good sign that
she would likely be safe. It was a
little odd walking up to a complete stranger and asking for a ride.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” I asked
“Yes?” She stopped
and faced us
Emily started the request, “Um, well, we walked here and we
were wondering if you could give us a ride down the hill.”
She smiled, “I’d be glad to! I noticed you two walking around here, and I
could tell you were tired.” She started
walking to her car and we followed.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Just to the middle school,” Emily said politely.
“Where’d you come from?”
The lady started buckling her daughter into her car seat.
“The hotel by the highway,” I answered.
“I’ll bring you all the way to the hotel, how’s that?”
We definitely liked that idea, and we thanked her
profusely.
That was an amazing car ride. I guess you could call what we were doing
hitchhiking, but thank God we ended up with the best driver possible! This lady was a Christian (when Emily asked
how she was saved, she said “I just quit saying no.”). She had a Veggie Tales CD playing in her car,
which Emily sang along with a little.
Emily had fun talking with her daughter while I gave directions to the
hotel. This lady was like an angel for
us, because we got to the hotel in plenty of time to relax and gather our stuff
before coming down to the shelter. May
God bless her.
Our shuttle driver was a great guy too. He talked the whole time about his sons and
how they were totally changed when they joined the Marines. He was so friendly and helpful, and he
talked about his faith too! He teaches
Sunday school at his church. How
exciting to get transportation from two Christians in a row :-).
Today Yao and I ate lunch outside under a tree. It gets so hot out in front of the CS
building, where we’re surrounded by concrete and the building reflects heat
down on us. It was a nice to sit in the
cool grass for a change. As usual, I
checked the clover to see if I could find some four-leafed specimens. What do you know, I found one the minute I
sat down. I picked the clover and showed
Yao. Now, I don’t believe in luck or
superstitions (c’mon now, God’s in charge of everything), but I do find four-leaf
clovers quite fascinating since they’re not that common. Yao had never heard that four-leaf clovers
are supposed to be lucky. I tried to
explain Saint Patrick’s Day to her, but it’s an odd holiday when all most
people do is wear green to avoid being pinched.
I did tell her some about Saint Patrick himself, who was a missionary to
Ireland when it was dominated by Druids.
Well, George and Lori were quite pleased with my latest
work on the user interface. The timing
seems to work out well. I get to a point
where I can’t think of anything else to add just in time for the meeting, then
they give me a whole batch of new ideas.
Rachel and Jamie invited me over for dinner with them
tonight before Bible study. We had lavash bread (which is kind of like a square pita) with
shrimp and scallions and quite a selection of veggies and greens. They have a “farm share,” which means they
pay one monthly price and get a selection of fresh produce weekly. People around here are definitely
enthusiastic about supporting local farms.
Tonight’s Bible study was the second in a the Romans 9-11
series at College Church. We discussed
the issue of free will versus predestination.
Some people definitely can get hung up on this issue. I believe that God gives us the ability to
accept Him and obey Him. But as for all
those conflicting issues, I think they’re just difficult to fully understand as
finite humans. We can’t always know why
God does what He does, or how He does it.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than
your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:9)
Yao and I had been planning a kind of get-together to make
Chinese food and American dessert this weekend.
But Yao got an invitation to spend this weekend in Boston with her
friend, so she asked me if I minded rescheduling. That was no problem with me, especially since
this would be a one-time experience for Yao – Fourth of July in Boston! Anastasia heard us talking and thought that
we were making plans to go to Boston together.
She poked her head around her cubicle.
“Are you going to Boston?
Can I come too?”
I told her Yao was going, but I’d love to go sometime. Next thing I knew, Anastasia and I were
making plans to go to Boston this weekend!
We reserved rooms in a hostel (the hotels are way to expensive there)
for July 3rd through 5th. We checked out
the bus times and rates, and I planned to buy the tickets tomorrow. This was probably the most impulsive thing
I’ve planned, but I was really excited!
Today I added some of yesterday’s suggestions to my
presentation. My original plan for a
summary builder just wasn’t flexible enough and wasn’t very user-friendly. The new builder I designed will allow the
user to view the summary as it’s being built, instead of waiting until the end
to see what it will look like. My
original design involved one big tree of selections, which didn’t give the user
any choice on what order the categories will be in. The new design allows the user to choose one
category at a time.
Beth and Leon weren’t going to be there tonight for Bible
study, so I called Allie to find out who I could get a ride with. Andy was there, so he picked me up and
brought me. Our discussion was less
formal tonight since we didn’t have Leon there to lead it (I think Andy was in
charge in his absence).
Tonight was a sad night, because it was the last night I’d
see Sarah. She’s leaving for an
internship with Nestle chocolate! It was
sad to say goodbye, because she had been one of the most welcoming people to
me. I’d enjoyed the couple of times we
went swimming and the conversations we had.
Just that little effort from her part helped to make me feel more at
home up here.
Today I bought tickets and packed my bags for my trip to
Boston! This is the lightest packing job
I’ve ever done – I managed to get everything I would need for the weekend into
one backpack! Thankfully the hostel we
were going to stay in already has towels and blankets, so we didn’t need to lug
sleeping bags around or anything. I
wanted to pack lightly so that we could check out of the hostel on Monday morning
and still spend the rest of the day exploring.
This morning I was awake at 5:00 AM! I had agreed to feed Rachel’s kitties while
she and Jamie were gone, so I needed to take care of them as well as get to the
bus stop on time for the 7:00 bus. I
rode my bike to Rachel’s house, which is a quick trip from my place. It was really neat being out on a bike at
that time of the morning. The street was
really empty, and the sun was rising.
Everything is so fresh and beautiful in the morning. I like to think that heaven will be like an
eternal morning, where things are always fresh and new.
On my way back from feeding the cats, this evil vine that
was hanging over the path slapped me over the face! I got a scratch across the side of my
mouth. It didn’t hurt that much, but I
got a picture of my “battle scars” afterwards.
I got ready really quickly and walked to the Fleet bank
early to meet Anastasia. It’s so nice
being early for things, because then you can relax and watch what’s happening
around you, and pray sometimes. I
watched all the people who were on their way to work or out for a morning run,
and I listened to the birds sing their beautiful music. Anastasia arrived at 6:30, and we walked
together to the bus stop.
Both of us were so excited when we saw the skyscrapers of
Boston! The roads into the city are a 3D
maze of overpasses and underpasses and tunnels.
I’m glad we didn’t try driving in!
From the bus stop, we boarded the “T” (which is what Boston calls its
subway). I’d forgotten how subways
worked, because the only other time I’ve been on one was in Washington DC with
my family. I was fascinated by the way
that each car is flexible. I loved
looking down the car and seeing the other half twisting independently of our
half.
Our hostel was in a great spot, really close to one of the
T stops. We asked a fireman for
directions (He had a slight Bostonian accent, which I enjoyed hearing :-) Oh,
and his T-shirt had a Red Sox emblem on it, of course!) Our hostel was called Hostel International,
Boston, or HI, Boston. We paid for two
nights, then went up to check out the room.
There were 3 sets of bunk beds, one set of which were taken. Anastasia took the top bunk and I took the
bottom. I wondered who our roommates would
be. Our room was nice enough, and the
bathrooms looked ok, if not perfectly clean.
Well, it’s only 2 nights, and we were getting a good deal for a stay in
Boston.
Once we settled our stuff in, we walked across the Harvard
Bridge to MIT. Steve had told us that we
should see the Computer Science building there, so we searched the map for
CS. We couldn’t find it until we
realized that Electrical Engineering is connected with CS at this college. We found the building, which was totally
different from any building I’ve ever seen.
It looked like parts of many different buildings put together. The architect had included every shape,
angle, and building material he could think of.
Anastasia and I went inside to explore a bit. The inside was just as cool and unique as the
outside. There were open walkways on the
second floor that curved and branched like a maze, and the stairways sloped up
gradually in graceful curves.
We walked the whole way along the Cambridge side of the
river to the next bridge so we could get to the Boston Common. On the way we stopped at Ben & Jerry’s
for some ice-cream (yum!). Boston Common
is a beautiful rolling field with widely-spaced oaks where tons of people come
to sunbathe, throw Frisbees around, relax in the shade, or as one policeman was
doing, gallop around on a horse (no fair!).
Anastasia opted for the first of these choices (she wanted to get rid of
some tan lines on her feet). I sat in the
grass nearby and watched people. In the
common there was a shallow wading pool, where little kids and their parents
happily splashed around a fountain in the center. The first thing that came to my mind was that
I had seen this sort of thing sometime long ago. I had seen a wading pool like that on Sesame
Street! I remember when I was little
thinking it odd that Sesame Street mainly showed an urban way of life. I didn’t even realize that these public
wading pools existed! It was a really
neat sort of gathering place, and it was awesome to learn that that pool is an
ice-skating rink in the winter!
Anastasia and I left the commons to see Long Wharf. It was a nice little spot (though the wharf
didn’t strike me as very long).
Anastasia rested (and tanned her feet) while I paced the dock, watching
tourists and snapping photos. Tyler
would’ve liked that spot, because there were a few skaters showing their stuff
in the middle of the wharf. They were
really good, too!
We decided to have dinner at the North End, which is
well-known for its Italian restaurants.
We browsed the menus outside the restaurants, suffering from some shock
at their prices. Outside one restaurant,
called Dolce Vita, the owner was personally inviting people in. That’s what really made us decide to eat
there. He was so very Italian, I kept
thinking of all the Italian caricatures I’ve seen on TV. He called all the women and girls who came to
his restaurant “bella,” and at times his accent was
difficult to understand. We had a fancy
dinner, but we didn’t realize how much it would cost until the end. They’d charged us for the bread and spring
water as well as our entrees, so our bills came up to $20 each! Normally I wouldn’t like spending so much,
but it was ok this time. It had been
really good food and a unique atmosphere, so I didn’t mind one expensive meal.
After dinner, we took the T back to our hostel so we could
get ready for the Boston Pops tonight.
At the hostel we met our roommates, who were both from Britain! Both of them go to Manchester University, and
one girl was actually from Manchester (I think that’s where my advisor, Dr.
Wilkinson, is from). I loved talking to
them and listening to their accents. We
snuck out a blanket from the hostel to sit on at the pops. Thankfully the blanket was already dark
green, so grass couldn’t really do anything to it. We did very well to find the spot we did at
the pops. Even though this was just the
rehearsal night, the place was fair teeming with people. We shared our blanket with two ladies who
were in town on business and settled in for the concert. We were quite far from the stage, but the
sound what really mattered anyway. And
what sound! I loved every minute of the
big band and orchestra performances! The
only part I didn’t like was the few retro rock n’ roll songs they
performed. There was quite a variety of
styles: the theme from Saving Private Ryan, “Boogie Woogie
Bugle Boy,” some great swing (which I totally wanted to dance to), and show
tunes. I recorded a minute of “Bugle
Boy” on my camera for mom, since that’s one of her band’s favorite songs.
Today was Independence Day!
Not only that, but it was a Sunday.
I really wanted to go to some sort of church service, and Anastasia
really wanted to shop. So we worked out
a great compromise – she shopped while I went to church. Anastasia was ecstatic because there were all
these sales at the shopping mall, and I was happy because I didn’t have to
spend my Sunday morning in the mall!
I did a bit of wandering to see what kinds of churches were
in the area. There was a church on
almost every street corner, but as I guessed, they were all either really
formal or really liberal or in many cases, both. Well, I prayed that whatever church I went
to, God could bless me through it. I had
an hour until the services started, so I strolled down to the public garden to
enjoy God’s creation. I love nature and,
I love praising God for it. The garden
was exquisite, with vibrant flowers in some parts and mighty elms in
others. I have really found a love for
trees, especially the way that the sun shines through their leaves. Whenever I’m in a forest, I like to think of
it as a cathedral. The trunks of the
trees are pillars holding up the lofty roof.
All the branches overhead form an arched ceiling, and the leaves are
stained glass glowing in the sunlight.
In that garden, I kept just thinking “Wow, God this is amazing!”
When it came time for church, I chose an Episcopalian
church just because I’ve been curious about formal services. I’ve heard a lot about “sit, stand, kneel”
churches and I was wondering how they worked.
Though I was fairly confused by the order of events and what to say
when, I thought that the prayers we read were amazing. The choir music was beautiful, too. Communion was strange, though. They have communion every Sunday, and for
this ceremony everyone walks to the front of the church and kneels at this
circular sort of altar that surrounds the priests. The priests walk around inside the circle and
offer bread and wine to each person, saying “The body of Christ, broken for
you” and “The blood of Christ, poured out for you.” The wine was really wine this time, not the
grape juice my church offers. It had
that strange warming feeling like the wine I’ve sipped before.
After church, I returned to the mall to meet
Anastasia. She was so excited about all
the stuff she’d gotten, but she still wasn’t done shopping. Anastasia was too excited to eat, I think,
because she told me just to go get some lunch then meet her again in an
hour. I was cool with that, because I
was hungry, and I don’t like to stay in the mall longer than necessary. I wanted to try more unique food, so I was
glad when I found “Steve’s Greek Cuisine.”
It was strange going into a sit-down restaurant by myself, but the food
was very good. I got your typical Greek
gyro, which I’ve enjoyed before.
Anastasia decided she’d shopped enough after lunch. We decided to try out the “Freedom Trail,”
which is a red line painted on the street that connects many of the historical
sites in Boston. We tried starting out
on our own, but the line seemed to dead end near the beginning, and we couldn’t
tell where to go next. I really wanted
to pay for a guided tour because then we would get to hear the historical
background of the sites, and we wouldn’t get lost. Anastasia was a bit hesitant, but in the end
we got our tickets. We set out with a
small group (maybe 10 total) with the historically-costumed Lydia as our
guide. Lydia was boisterous, loquacious,
and humorous. Ok, my vocabulary isn’t that
big (I used the thesaurus to find “loquacious”) – I’ll just say she was
energetic, talkative, and funny :-). She
told stories with great enthusiasm and flair at every stop.
The first place we saw was the new State house, which has a
23 carat gold leaf dome. The “new” state
house is actually more than 100 years old, but I guess that just puts it into
perspective how old things are in Boston.
Next, we saw the Granary Burial Ground, where John Hancock, Paul Revere,
and Samuel Adams (not the beer!) were buried.
Also Benjamin Franklin’s parents were buried here. Lydia told us a lot about John Hancock’s
jealousy of George Washington (apparently Hancock wanted to be president
instead). She also talked about Paul Revere’s midnight ride, where he couldn’t have been yelling
out like the poem said, because he was on a secret mission.
We walked from the burial ground to the Old State
House. This is where the Sons of Liberty
had met to protest the Intolerable Acts and also to plan the Boston Tea
Party. Near the Old State House was the
Old City Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was first read and has
been read every year since July 4th, 1776!
The whole tour took an hour at least, then it was back to
the hostel. Anastasia had been carrying
around her purchases the whole time, so we wanted to drop those off. Also, we were going to see the fireworks
tonight, so we snuck the blanket out again.
We still had plenty of time before the fireworks, so we
tried to walk to Harvard. Well, we
didn’t realize just how far away Harvard was.
We walked a long way, then asked someone passing us if we were going in
the right direction. Turns out we would
need to take the T, and there weren’t any stops very close to us. So we decided just to buy some dinner and
find a spot to wait for the fireworks.
We checked out the food stands, but their food was way over priced and
terribly greasy. In the end, we opted
for Subway (yum!).
We found a great spot on the bridge where we could fold our
blanket over double and sit on the railing (when I say railing, I don’t mean
the edge of the bridge, but the thing that separates the cars from the
sidewalk. Although the edge of the
bridge would’ve been cool :-) ). There
were tons of boats in the river that had anchored and tied themselves together
in little groups. The people on the
boats were enjoying cookouts and climbing from boat to boat to socialize. Some of them (silly people) were watching
TV. But, I think they were watching the
Boston Pops, so I guess I’ll forgive them :-).
All of the streets were closed off for this event, and
there were policemen on motorcycles all around to keep things straight. Though there weren’t that many people when we
first arrived, the crowd kept growing until the entire bridge was covered with
people, in the street and on the railings.
We were really glad we got our spot so we wouldn’t have to look over
everyone else’s heads. That is, until a
group of tall guys came and stood directly in front of us. Well, we did have our own remedy for that
situation. We just stood on the railing,
(which, I must admit, didn’t make the people behind us very happy).
To start off the celebrations, a group of four F-15 Fighter
jets flew right over us. The sound they
made was awesome (I know Dad would’ve loved it). After that, we got sort of an “appetizer” of
fireworks, but since it wasn’t fully dark yet, we had to wait a little longer
for the real thing. As it darkened
outside, there were people walking the streets selling those long glowing
sticks that you can use as necklaces.
Three little kids in front of us were playing with these sticks, and
Anastasia and I had fun counting the number of imaginative ways they used them. At one point they stuck the sticks through
their sandals. They improvised and the
sticks became swords, snakes, crowns, bracelets…anything was possible.
The fireworks themselves were amazing, of course. The Boston fireworks show is one of the best
in the world, at least, according to their website. There were some that fell slowly in
glittering arcs, like a waterfall.
Others blew up into small pieces that flew around sporadically,
screaming. There were smiley-face and
heart-shaped fireworks, which everyone laughed at, and fireworks that split
into smaller sections, that in turn split in to smaller sections, so that the
whole sky was covered in tiny explosions!
Everyone cheered for that one.
Some fireworks looked like bright blue planets with vibrant red
rings. And one thing that had us all
surprised was a firework that left little glowing green “worms” that looked
like they were stuck in midair, slowly floating downwards. I guess they had parachutes on those.
After the fireworks, everyone was riled up and kind of
crazy. I’m glad there were so many policemen
around, because everyone was yelling and getting excited (thankfully no one did
anything dangerous – they just yelled a lot).
The whole mob that had crowded the bridges, the streets, and the
riverbank poured into downtown in a huge group.
We boldly walked down streets that weren’t blocked off, but there were
so many of us that the cars couldn’t go anywhere anyway. Cars would be trying to get through the
intersections, but the street was so thick with people they couldn’t do
anything but honk. Everyone walked with
a defiant air right in front of the cars.
I thought that this kind of paralleled the American Revolution. Normally the cars have supreme rule over the
streets and the pedestrians have to be careful about when they cross. But tonight, this glorious Independence Eve,
the pedestrians declared their right to rule the streets, if only for one
night.
I wanted to go see the USS Constitution sometime during my
stay in Boston. So we decided first
thing in the morning that we would take the T there. I took a little longer to get ready in the
morning than I meant to, so we really had to hurry. Our check-out time at the hostel was 11:00
am. We took a subway that stopped sooner
than we wanted by accident, so we had to walk the rest of the way. We got a little lost, but thankfully
Bostonians are very willing to volunteer directions! One lady saw us looking at a map and
immediately offered to help!
To make things more complicated, it started to rain. I overheard a British family asking for
directions to the USS Constitution, so I offered that they could follow
us. We were in more of a hurry, so we
got quite far ahead of them, but at least they had an idea of where to go. This bridge we crossed over was really
cool. In the middle section, the floor
was just a metal mesh, so you could see through to the water and the pillars
holding the bridge up! I thought that
was awesome, but Anastasia got freaked out (she doesn’t like heights much).
Well, by the time we got to the ship itself, we could only
stop long enough for two quick photos.
Anastasia was really getting anxious to get back so we wouldn’t have to
pay for another day at the hostel. We
literally ran back to the subway station.
We were both afraid that this place may be more obscure and the subways
would come less often. I was praying
like crazy that our train would come soon.
And what do you know, it came around the corner as soon as we stepped
into the station! Thank you, God!
After we checked out of the hostel and gathered our stuff,
we decided to make up for the day we missed Harvard. We took the T up to Harvard Square. Anastasia and I didn’t know where Harvard
Square was, so we asked people how to get there while we were standing in the
middle of it! It’s really not very
impressive, at least not in the rain.
It’s really just this little triangle in the middle of three roads. Everything was wet and there were cars and
rain and people and bricks everywhere.
Yup, Harvard has a lot of bricks.
Anastasia had really wanted a T-shirt from Harvard and
MIT. We found a gift shop, and had an
interesting time finding the clothes.
The main entrance lead to a bookstore which had all these layers and
twisting staircases like something in Harry Potter. We had to go through that to another floor,
then from that floor through a hallway connecting to another building, then up
another flight of stairs to finally reach the clothes. Anastasia and I chose tons of shirts and
tried them on, laughing about the possibility of being students at these elite
schools (I ended up getting a Harvard and a Boston shirt). Anastasia would sincerely like to go to MIT,
but I don’t think I’d like it. Mostly
the location would bother me. I love
Western for the mountains and the “in the middle of nowhere” feeling. I don’t really like big cities. Boston was nice to visit, but I would not
want to live near there.
For lunch, we went to Au Bon Pain (which I guess is French
for “good bread” or something). I got
soup in a bread bowl, which is a nice, warming thing on a rainy day. There were two little birds stuck inside the
sunroom part of the restaurant, and they were swooping down on crumbs and any
unguarded sandwiches!
We were so excited when we passed the Harvard Law School
sign that we got our pictures taken on it!
It was perfect for posing on. We
sat on Anastasia’s plastic bag from the gift shop so we wouldn’t get soaked from
sitting on the wet sign.
Next we walked to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. Though we were kind of hesitant about
visiting a museum instead of touring more places, the weather was just not
suitable for exploring outside. The
museum turned out to be awesome, anyway!
The first thing we saw was the glass flower collection. I was wondering what the big deal was with
glass flowers, until I saw them. These
things were absolutely amazing! Two
glass artists had been hired to construct replicas of different plants out of
glass. And these models were
astounding. Anastasia and I both thought
they were real plants before we read the signs.
The detail was exquisite. Down to
the smallest tendril or seed or bit of fluff, they didn’t leave anything out! I just couldn’t believe it. There were a lot of signs describing the
plants. For instance, I learned that
laurel flowers have spring-loaded filaments (the part of the flower that holds
up the pollen). When a bee visits the
flower, the filaments snap upward and hit the bee, covering it with pollen to
be distributed to the next flower!
After
the flowers, we explored the animal part of the museum. There were hundreds of taxidermies
there. Anastasia was glad to learn lots
of animal names, like rhinoceros and bat.
She called the bats “flying rats” because that’s what their name means
in Russian. I think the coolest part of
this was the sense of scale. A cheetah
looks tiny next to a Bengal tiger!
Cheetahs are only the size of an average dog, but tigers are as big as a
pony! The tiger could kill the cheetah
in one bite (if it was fast enough).
Anastasia was excited to see an Alaskan moose. She said moose wander through Anchorage (near
her school) all the time.
A section of the museum was dedicated to rocks. My old roommate Sarah was a geology major and
she would’ve been in heaven at that place.
I don’t know much about rocks, but I really enjoyed looking at the
variety of colors, textures, shapes, and patterns each rock type had. There was also a section with pieces of
meteorites and stories about where they’d come from. One of them had fallen through a lady’s roof,
thankfully while she was gone.
Another section of the museum was dedicated to
anthropology. There was a big area with
Mayan artifacts, which I really appreciated since my trip to Mexico. I recognized some of the imagery,
particularly the flying snake, Quatzequatl. I also enjoyed the Mayan writings, since we
learned how their phonetic alphabet works.
Once we finished a quick look at the Pacific Island museum
on the top floor, we realized we needed to hurry back. We grabbed our stuff and scurried to the
closest T. When we got to the T station
near the bus stop, we had a hard time finding the area where the actual busses
were. We took a mad dash, and just
barely made it in time for the bus back to Amherst.
Back at Amherst Anastasia and I relaxed a little from the
strenuous touring of the day. We ate a
restful dinner at Antonio’s and finished off with some ice-cream from
Bart’s. Tomorrow it’s back to work!
Today we had an Analysis meeting, where Steve gave a
presentation. He’s an ardent PowerPoint
protester, so all that he used were handouts.
I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, because it was a
totally different part of the lab from what I’m working on. I did have a general idea of what he was
explaining, but I had a hard time paying attention, I must admit.
Once again, I got my summary design to a point where I
couldn’t think of more features to add.
I was ready for another meeting, which we had scheduled tomorrow,
thankfully.
I drew a dog from a painting today. I love his expression. He’s looking up at someone, but you can’t see
what he’s looking at. His face just
looks so intent and eager-to please, like my dear dog Davy :-). I liked the balance of light and dark in this
picture.
Steve invited Anastasia and me to eat lunch with him
today. We walked a long way to a
restaurant called Daisy’s. It was
beautiful weather, and Steve asked Anastasia and me questions about our stay
here in Amherst. He thought that Brendan
and Robin sounded like cool people (being a vegetarian himself). We were both sorry that Anastasia is so
unhappy with her housing at the Hillel House, but
she’s pretty much stuck there with a lease.
After lunch, I had my meeting with George, Lori, and
Rachel. I showed them my updated
presentation, and asked them for suggestions.
George found a major flaw in my assumptions, which was simply because I
didn’t have a good understanding of how a Propel project was organized. I thought that a project contained alphabets,
which contained properties, which contained events. Actually, alphabets contain events and
properties. The properties apply the
events, but they don’t contain them.
This may seem like an insignificant difference, but the meaning is quite
different. To express this meaning, I
needed to reorganize the summary tables to make it clear. Instead of grouping properties with events, I
put them into two distinct columns.
The College Church Bible study was cancelled tonight, so I
didn’t have anywhere to go tonight. That
was well enough, because I got some time to work on my journal.
I got a ride to Bible study with Beth and Leon
tonight. We had Szechwan chicken
stir-fry again, which I loved. Tonight’s
parable was about the servant who owed a king ten thousand talents (which is
about 60,000,000 days’ wages). The king
pardoned the debt and let the man off free.
But after being pardoned, the man found another servant who owed him 100
denarii, which is 100 days’ wages. He demanded the money immediately, and when
the other servant couldn’t pay him back, he had him thrown in jail. This was a parallel to forgiveness in the
kingdom of God. How quickly I forget my
own sins and God’s amazing mercy when I am asked to forgive someone else.
Yao and I went to the Blue Wall for lunch today. I got a tomato basil pizza and I was ready
and waiting with my food pretty quickly.
Somehow, Yao disappeared though!
I kept looking into the area where you get food, and scanning the
tables, but I couldn’t find her anywhere!
I thought she’d left or something, so I just sat down by myself and
started eating. After a couple of
minutes, Yao materialized, seemingly out of nowhere. She had been in line for a sub, but I
couldn’t see her behind one of the displays.
Oops!
I stayed late after work drawing Peter Rabbit. I put a whole lot of detail into this
one. I especially like the vines on the
left side, and the subtlety of the colors.
I think Beatrix Potter had amazing artistic
talent, and I enjoyed copying one of her works.
On the way out of work (I didn’t leave until 7:00), I saw a wild rabbit
on the lawn in front of the CS building.
It was like Peter Rabbit had come out to say hi to me :-).
When I got back, no one was home. I guess Brendan and Robin decided to go out
for dinner. That was fine with me. I went to the back yard and picked
blackberries (hey, there’s another element of Peter Rabbit!). I’d been planning on making dinner and
dessert with Yao tomorrow, and a blackberry pie sounded like a good American
dessert. There mosquitoes were all over,
because there’s a little swampy area behind the yard. I had to put on some bug spray to keep them
away.
I decided to have breakfast for dinner tonight! I found a recipe for whole wheat pancakes
that called for molasses. I like
pancakes best when they’re hearty and filling, so a whole wheat molasses recipe
sounded great. The batter was more like
waffle batter, because it didn’t spread out when you poured it. Instead, it remained thick. That was fine with me, and the result was
delicious. I couldn’t find any syrup, so
I ate them with honey and butter.
The blackberries I picked yesterday were not enough for a
whole pie. I wanted to add some
strawberries to the mixture, so I asked Robin where the best roadside stand
would be for that. She told me
strawberries were out of season, but I could get blueberries at a stand not too
far from here. To get there, I biked
through the trail I took before when I went “exploring.” The hayfield the path originally went through
was now cut, so my spokes were full of bits of hay when I got out of it. I had to pull out those bits of hay to keep
them from making annoying noises as I rode. The
street I took lead down a beautiful country road, with beautiful views of
rolling mountains beyond the green fields.
What marvelous countryside!
At the end of the road, I saw a strange sight. I first noticed a policeman, stopped on the
side of the road sitting on his motorcycle.
I soon saw he was talking to someone.
There was a lady lying in the grass a few feet off the road. I heard her lament in a hopeless voice,
“Please, just bring me to jail!”
The officer calmly replied, “Why do you want to go to
jail?”
I didn’t stick around to hear any more. I didn’t want to intrude, and that’s just
what I heard as I passed by them.
Obviously, I was curious (and, I must admit, revolted in a way) by that
strange situation. After I thought about
it, though, I began to feel sorry for this woman. I have no idea how she got into that state,
but she was obviously miserable with her life.
I tried to pray for her instead of looking down on her for her sad
condition.
I bought my blueberries and prayed as I rode back to the
house. Once I got back to my place, I
prepared pie filling and crust. This
way, all Yao and I would have to do tonight would be to put it together and
bake it.
I remembered that fresh pie from the oven is wonderful with
vanilla ice-cream! I got directions from
Mapquest, got on my bike again and headed to Stop
& Shop. It was a really easy, quick
trip there, because there was a long, steep downhill. But – you guessed it – the trip back was an
arduous uphill climb. I could have
gotten off my bike and walked it, but I was determined to pedal the whole
way. I started singing part of a song
from when I was little in my mind:
Let us run, run run.
Run with perseverance
Let us run, run, run
The race marked out for us
Let us throw off everything that hinders
And let us run, run, run
The race marked out for us.
I laughed to myself when I
sang “Let us throw off everything that hinders,” because I definitely didn’t
want to throw off my backpack and the ice-cream in it! This song is from Hebrews 12:1, which goes
like this: “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of
witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily
entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” Bible verses put to songs are so much easier
to remember! I have that verse memorized
along with many others from tapes we listened to as kids.
When I got into my neighborhood, one of the neighbors
called out to me from her lawn. She
wanted to have a conversation at length.
She was very nice, and I enjoyed talking to her. However, I had ice-cream melting in my
backpack, and I was supposed to meet Anastasia at the Fleet bank. I hastily apologized for having to cut the
conversation short, and returned to the house to grab the pie pan, filling, and
crust.
I was a little late in walking to the Fleet, and I didn’t
see Anastasia anywhere. I didn’t have
any time to wait for her, and I didn’t know if she had forgotten about our
plans altogether. Either way, I needed
to catch the bus, so I went straight to the bus stop from the bank. Anastasia wasn’t there either, and I arrived
just in time to board the bus. I decided
the best thing would be just to call her and tell her I was sorry for not
meeting her. But I didn’t have my
address book with me, (and I don’t have a cell phone) so I had no way of
contacting her. All I could do was tell
her later what had happened.
I found Yao’s apartment and
knocked on the door. A Chinese guy
opened the door and called Yao. Yao
welcomed me in. It was a nice little
place, but fairly crowded with miscellaneous objects on one side of the
room. The kitchen was the most
interesting part, because their ingredients are so different. There were tons of different spices on the
counter, and they had shrimp laid out in spiral fashion on a plate. Yao’s roommate, Xinlie (pronounced: “tseen-lay”),
was stirring some pork, to which she was adding chunks of crystallized
sugar. They seem to cook their food at
higher temperatures, because the kitchen seemed to be hotter than usual. There was a shower curtain hung between the
kitchen and the living room, to keep the smells (and heat, I suppose) out.
Xinle and Yao had prepared quite
a feast. We had strawberries and apples
as an appetizer, spring rolls, steamed shrimp with garlic, sweet pork, tofu and
Chinese cabbage soup, and scallops with celery.
I ate everything with my chopsticks.
The Chinese style of eating dinner is quite different. Instead of scooping up a serving of
everything we wanted onto big plates, we put a little portion at a time in our
bowls. For instance, Yao would take only
one or two pieces of shrimp, then after she ate that, she would take a piece of
pork, then one scoop of soup. This way
of eating is slower and more gradual. I
think you’d get full faster when you take a little at a time instead of
gobbling huge piles of food on your plate.
They didn’t have serving spoons, but we took our portions with our chopsticks.
After dinner I French braided Yao’s
hair. She’d never had that done before,
and I love to braid, so it was a lot of fun.
She has highlights, which looked beautiful in the braid.
Yao and I made the pie next. We split up the dough, and I rolled out my
piece for the bottom crust, while she prepared hers out for the top. They didn’t have a rolling pin, so we cleaned
off a dowel, which worked just as well.
We had to add more water to keep the dough from crumbling. I was too conservative with the water,
because I was afraid of messing up the crust.
My bottom crust crumbled as I folded it in half and laid it in the pan. That was ok, because I just patched it
up. Yao added just the right amount of
water. That was good because it’s much
harder to fix the top crust. We poured
in the filling, then sliced the dough into strips for a woven pattern on the
top. The pie turned out so pretty! We ate it fresh out of the oven, with vanilla
ice-cream on top. Yao and Xinle thought ice-cream with hot pie was an idea I
invented. I told them it’s a very
typical American dessert! :-)
Leon wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I couldn’t get a
ride to church with Beth and him this morning.
Instead, I decided to walk to First Baptist Church of Amherst. It was a beautiful morning, and I left early,
so I strolled slowly along, enjoying the flowers in the gardens on the
way. I took the same shortcut through
the woods that Brendan showed me for going to the lab.
I got to the church really early and met some
greeters. It was so much more relaxing
to leave early and walk to church than to be late and rushing to get ready
(like I usually do). I expected to see
some people from Navigators, since I thought a lot of them said they went to
First Baptist. Waiting in the lobby, I
watched people pass through into the sanctuary.
Nope, I didn’t recognize anyone.
But I did notice that these people were quite diverse for the number of
the people that I saw. Actually, this is
quite a source of pride for the older members.
One lady who has been at First Baptist for 40 or 50 years told me that
it began as an all-white church. It was
awesome to see believers from such a variety of skin tones and ethnic
backgrounds gathering together for worship!
Finally I saw a face I recognized! Jeff, from the Navigators Bible Study came in
and I asked him if anyone from Navigators was there. He didn’t know, but we went into the sanctuary
and he introduced me to some guys from his Growth Group – Chris and Bert (who
ran the soundbooth).
I think the Growth Group is basically a small Bible study focused on
growing in Christ.
I was excited when the music started, because this morning
we sang some fun, upbeat songs as well as a hymn. I knew one of the songs from a Campus Harvest
retreat. I could almost dance in my
place I was so excited. That song made
me think about my friends in Campus Rock again (who really would’ve danced to
that song). I also really love singing
hymns because they’re so rich with words that remind me of who God is and why
we worship Him.
The message today was called Icons vs. Idols. Basically, there are many things on earth
that point to God, like the music we sing, the people we love (my family and
Campus Rock in my case), and even our own emotions. Though these things can remind us to look to
God, none of them should become our focus.
Worship doesn’t depend on the song you sing, but the God you
admire. Sometimes we can become so
wrapped up in how we worship that we forget who we worship.
I found out after the service that there’s a church-wide
picnic today! Of course, I wanted to go
(how could I turn down free food and the chance to get to know some fellow
Christians?). Jeff offered to give me a
ride, but he had some errands to run first.
I was glad to come along (I’d just go wait at the house otherwise).
Jeff’s first errand was to get the keys to his “new”
house. I put “new” in quotes because it
looked ancient (by my standards, which was cool! There were two people there who gave us a
tour of the place. It had funny little
nooks and crannies, carvings on the ceiling, an arched doorway, and what we
dubbed “servant’s quarters” in the attic.
I bet you could find a secret passage or magic wardrobe somewhere in a
house like that.
Next Jeff drove to the place he’s staying now so he could
change into better picnic clothes. I
played with his landlord’s dog, which had barked incessantly at me when I
arrived. I think the dog just wanted
some attention, and I was glad to play some catch with it. After Jeff changed, we headed to Chris’ house
to pick him up. Then it was off to the
picnic!
The church picnic was at one member’s farm. The food tables were set up in a barn and
there was a big field and a pool in the back yard. It was a great place for a good old-fashioned
picnic. Jeff and I got our side dishes
and waited for some meat to be ready. We
ate what we had and talked about our faith while we waited. Like other people I’ve talked to lately (such
as Sarah), Jeff had a similar experience to mine. Though he grew up in a Christian home, he
didn’t really take his faith as his own until later. Now, he’s considering going into ministry
sometime
Tons of people introduced themselves to me at this
picnic. One lady in particular told me
some about the church’s history. She’d
joined First Baptist when she was a college student, she met her husband there,
and she’s gone to that church for more than 40 years. This lady was really sweet, and she pointed
out a lot of other members and told me who they were. Overall, I had a fun time this afternoon!
Today I asked Anastasia to suggest what to draw. She wanted me to do something original, from
my head. So far I’d only made up one of
my drawings. The rest of them I either
drew from pictures online or from real life.
Anastasia, being a fan of Linux, is also a fan of penguins :-). If you don’t know what Linux is, well I’ll
just tell you that it’s something lots of computer science people use and the
Linux mascot is a penguin. I drew two
penguins on a picnic, and I had a lot of fun making up the different foods they
brought along. I also made up a park
around them, using blue colored pencil and my eraser to make a fountain. I don’t often like things that I make up, but
this turned out pretty cute.
This was an icky, rainy day. I have a hard time waking up on days like
that. So I slept in pretty late today
and didn’t come into the lab until around eleven. But when I got there I worked really hard to
finish up my presentation for tomorrow’s meeting. I didn’t leave until 7:00, even though I’d
forgotten to do a drawing! I don’t mind
staying later, because I often get bored when I get back to the house. I’d rather just sleep in and come in late and
leave late.
Brendan and Robin were in the mood for something quick and
easy tonight, so they got take-out from Antonio’s. Of course, it was meat-free pizza, but I love
it that way :-). Brendan was excited
about a big All Stars baseball game that was going on tonight, so I did the dishes
so he could watch that. I came in later
to see what it was all about. The best
players from each team joins in for this big game. There seemed to be an unusual number of
players, but I don’t really know how many there are in a normal game.
It was icky and rainy again today. I’ve gotten so used to the nice weather, I
think. Today I didn’t even come in until
12. As soon as I got there, Anastasia
and I went out for some lunch at the “Blue Wall.”
When we got back from lunch, I tied up the loose ends of my
presentation and sent it to Lori. My
meeting today was another satisfying one.
Yay!
Actually, they told me that my user interface needed very few
improvements. Now they wanted me to
start moving in a new direction, actually laying out the implementation of this
plan. They wanted me to figure out what
the structure of the code would be underneath the program.
I found a whole lot of pictures of lions online today. I’m always picky with choosing my drawing
subjects. In this case, I wanted a
really noble expression, since I was thinking of Aslan
from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I colored the background behind the lion like
a sunrise.
Rachel and Jamie brought me to the Romans Bible study again
tonight. The lesson was about Romans
10. Our leader is a great speaker, but
he is not very used to computers. He
opened up the wrong slideshow tonight, and he had to look in lots of folders
before he found the right one.
I feel sorry for anyone who has trouble with
computers. It’s strange to think how
much computer literacy has become a part of today’s culture. Just in my lifetime, I’ve seen things change
dramatically. I remember when our family
got internet for the first time, we had Prodigy as our internet service, and I
wondered what the big deal was about the internet, anyway. The only things it was useful for were email
and games. Since I didn’t have any
friends that lived far away from me and I didn’t need quick communication, I
didn’t see why email was necessary. As
for internet games, the ones I knew of were inferior to the games we already
had on our computer. Now, I hate to go a
day without checking my email, and I use the internet for research, and any
time I’m curious about something I look it up on Google. And what on earth would I do without Instant
Messenger? IM is great for quickly
inviting a group of people to dinner without making a lot of phone calls, or
chatting late at night, or asking what tomorrow’s homework is. I’ve even “IMed” my
roommate from across the desk for fun.
Anastasia, Yao, and I went to the Blue Wall for lunch
today. It was only a little overcast on
the way there, but when we were ready to head back there was a heavy downpour
outside. I suggested we run for it, but
Anastasia and Yao didn’t like that idea.
We decided to check out the university bookstore which was in the same
building.
In the bookstore we had fun looking at greeting cards and
reading the funny ones out loud to each other.
Anastasia and I admired some cute moose stuffed animals. They were the kind of stuffed animal that has
long arms with Velcro hands so it can hug you around your neck. Anastasia is a big fan of moose because she
sees them all over Anchorage. There were
also some name brand backpacks there that cost $50. There is no way that it cost $50 to make
those fancy pieces of canvas. I guess
the fact that they had “North Face” or “Jansport”
stitched into them gave them the right to spike the price so much. And people will pay that much! I’ve never understood the big deal with brand
names.
I wanted to draw something else relating to the Christian
faith today. Since I drew the lion
yesterday, I thought I wanted to draw a lamb today. But I didn’t find any lamb pictures that I
liked (lots of them were just cutesy cartoons).
So I started looking for the “Good Shepherd,” and I found a perfect
picture. It was very simple, but I think
very powerful at the same time. It’s
just a pencil sketch of a shepherd holding a lamb close to his face. Though you can’t see much of his face, the
shepherd (representing Jesus) looks so relieved to have his lamb, and the lamb
looks absolutely content and secure in his care. The clearest thing in the drawing is the
shepherd’s hand, which is pierced.
Now that I know where the Navigators Bible study is, I
decided to try riding my bike there again today. The weather was nice, though still a little
muggy from the rain earlier on. It was
an easy ride, mostly downhill. I had no
trouble finding the apartment, on the contrary, I got there early. It was nice not to depend on someone else to
bring me there!
Tonight’s study was about the parable of the Pharisee and
the tax collector. Both had gone into
the temple to pray, but their prayers were completely different. The Pharisee stood up and proclaimed “God, I
thank you that I am not like the other men—robbers, evil-doers, adulterers—or
even like this tax collector. I fast
twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”
Meanwhile the tax collector prayed, “God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.” We talked about the Pharisee’s
self-deception in only comparing himself to the worst of the worst people. It’s always so easy to find people worse
than you, so you can feel good when you compare yourself to them. But they are not our standard. We are supposed to follow God’s example, and
we can never live up to His perfection on our own. The Pharisee was secure in his own
righteousness, but the Bible tells us that our best righteousness is like
filthy rags when compared to God’s holiness.
Thankfully, we don’t have to live by our own righteousness. What a blessing and security it is to know
that Jesus gave us His righteousness so that our filthy rags are replaced with
fine linen.
It was dark outside after Bible study, so it wouldn’t be
that safe to ride my bike back.
Thankfully, Jeff has a Subaru (one of the most popular cars in MA), so
after taking off the wheel (good thing I practiced!) it wasn’t that hard to fit
the bike into his trunk. Getting the
wheel back on in the dark was a bit more difficult (it kept sticking on the
brakes), but I got it straightened out once I got into the basement.
Well, I was kind of nervous about my meeting today, because
I’d been asked to get into abstract stuff again this past week. I wasn’t really sure if I was thinking right,
or if they’d be happy with my ideas, or how I would present these ideas to Lori
and George. But they were really happy
with my progress. I’d had a real
breakthrough yesterday afternoon.
Basically, I found a way to formally define what was going on underneath
all of the complex operations of this program.
I found a set of attributes that each column has, which can have definite
values, and which are changed with sorting, moving, hiding, and filtering
columns. It helps a lot to know what
kind of information needs to be stored in the program so I can organize that
information into a class structure.
I suggested that I could apply the attributes I found to
the presentation I’d made. I would show
step by step how the classes underneath the program would change when the
summary itself changes. Lori thought
that was a great idea. She told me that
once I was done with that I should start actually designing the classes that
would hold this information.
Anastasia, Yao, and I had been planning on making dessert
for the LASER picnic this weekend. I
asked Jamie and Rachel if we could borrow pie pans and a cooler. Well, Jamie provided quite a bit more than we
needed! He gave me a huge collapsible
cooler, 3 pie pans, and every ice pack they owned! It was great to get so much stuff, but it was
difficult carrying this back home. I had
my usual backpack on my back, the cooler over my shoulder (this thing was
fairly bulky), and I was pushing my bike.
The cooler kept bumping into my legs, shifting to the side and chafing
them or shifting to the front and simply getting in the way. I had to hold that bugger still to keep it
from bothering me too much. But if I had
one hand on the cooler, that meant I only had one hand for my bike. And my bike seemed to be in a stubborn mood
or something, because it kept swaying side to side and wouldn’t go
straight. All day long I’d wanted to go
to the library, and even though I had these hindrances, I wanted to go
anyway. But after I trudged up to the
towering building, locked my bike, took up my burdens again, and walked to the
door, I read a sign that said the library was closed at this time. Silly me, I should’ve checked
beforehand. At least now I know the
hours it’s open for when I come back.
Finally, when I got to the neighborhood, I got smart with
my bags and bike. If I were as ingenious
as Anastasia, I would’ve thought of this to start out with. Instead of trying to hold up the cooler’s
weight on one side and keep the bike from swaying on the other, I used the
cooler’s weight to stabilize the bike! I
just rested the cooler on the horizontal bar connecting the bike seat to the
handlebars. This got the cooler’s weight
off my shoulder, and I could use two hands to steady my wayward bike. Yay for
resourcefulness! It was a walk in the
park the rest of the way.
Anastasia and Yao came to my place to bake today. We’d planned on making 4 pies for the
picnic. First we met up at the Fleet
bank, then we walked down to the grocery store to buy our supplies. It was a little bit hot, but still a nice day
for a walk. The grocery store was
probably a mile and a half from the Fleet, and Anastasia showed us a new way
down there that I didn’t know was possible before. This road had a sidewalk and nice houses (and
some huge trees) lining it. The road I’d
taken before on my bike wasn’t as pretty or pedestrian-friendly.
We got a lot of supplies at the grocery store. Anastasia didn’t have a good idea of how much
food 20 people would need, so she thought that 3 cartons of ice-cream would be
necessary. I’m used to big crowds of
people, but I haven’t bought groceries for them before. In the end, we settled with 2 cartons. We also bought flower and sugar and some
other heavy things, so my backpack was quite heavy by the end. We had so much stuff, we decided to wait for
the bus to take us back. While we were
waiting, we went into the magazine aisle and looked at what they had
there. Anastasia and I had fun with pictures
in Dog Fancy pictures, Yao was interested in car magazines, and Anastasia was
excited to see some yoga magazines (she said she could do most of the positions
they showed, though.)
We took the bus back, then discussed what we should do
next. We decided to pick blackberries in
the backyard for our berry pie first.
Anastasia turned out to be the best berry picker. She was really fast, and she ended up filling
her bucket pretty soon. I tramped back
in the middle of the bushes since I had long jeans and the thorns couldn’t
bother me. I don’t think Yao has ever
picked berries before. She did really
well and had fun anyway :-).
We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with milk and
strawberries for lunch. Such a nice,
simple meal. Nothin’
like good old PB&J. After lunch, we
got to work putting the pies together.
We’d planned on making 4 pies today: 1 apple, 1 mixed berry, and 2 fudge
pies. It was so much fun making
them! Anastasia mixed up the fillings,
while Yao and I worked on the crust. I
taught Yao and Anastasia about cutting butter into flour to make pastry (though
I missed having a pastry cutter). When I
had the dough to the right consistency, I was so impressed by the bulk of it
(and the wonderful way pie dough feels) that I had to do something creative
with it. I punched little eyes into the
huge lump of dough, formed a bulbous nose, and shaped a mouth to finish it
off. Yao and I loved our pie dough man,
and Yao tried taking a picture. Somehow
the eyes weren’t coming out right with her flash though. So the ever-resourceful Anastasia came to the
rescue. She stuck in blueberries for the
eyes, and slivers of strawberries for his lips.
Now that was a picture :-).
I laughed so hard at my little pie dough man, then after removing his
eyes and mouth, I punched him back down so we could make crust out of him (wow
that sounds violent, doesn’t it).
I helped Yao to roll out her first crust, but she got the
hang of it really easily, and soon she’d shaped all of the crusts we needed,
while I folded them and transferred them into the pie pans. Everything ran really smoothly, and we got
the pies into the oven, two at a time.
The berry pie was extremely juicy for some reason, so it dripped a lot
into the bottom of the oven, but that wasn’t a big deal. Hopefully it’ll turn out tasty all the
same. While the pies baked, Anastasia
baked too, hee hee. She sunbathed, trying to get rid of those
confounded food-stripes. Yao and I sat
on the side porch and chatted, but I kept jumping up to check on the pies since
I didn’t have a timer.
We’d been considering going to a movie after the pies were
done, but the bus schedule would require us to wait until pretty late. We scrapped the going out part, but I
suggested we could watch a movie in the house.
There wasn’t a huge selection, but I was in the mood to watch The
Fellowship of the Ring (c’mon, it’s been months since my last LOTR
fix!). Yao declined, but Anastasia had
wanted to see that again anyway. We said
our farewells to Yao, then Anastasia and I ate dinner with Brendan and
Robin. Then we settled in for the 4 hour
Special Extended Edition DVD version :-D.
Although Anastasia had seen all 3 movies before, she didn’t really
understand them. For one thing, she’d
watched them with people who’d already seen the movies multiple times, and no
one had explained them to her. Also, the
slightly antiquated language is confusing for a non-native speaker, even one as
skilled as Anastasia. Words like “foe,”
“raze,” “hence,” “vanquish,” and so on may even be unfamiliar to people who
have spoken English their whole lives.
But Anastasia enjoyed learning new words and listening to my commentary,
which ranged from movie-making trivia to in-depth background from Tolkien’s writings.
I had a lot of fun too! Hee hee, poor Anastasia had a
difficult time getting me to stop once she got me going.
I walked to First Baptist Church again this morning since
I’d had such a warm welcome last time.
Again, I left early and got there 15 or 20 minutes before the
service. Since no one I knew was there
yet, I sat down in the lobby to wait. In
the lobby I met a man who was waiting for the service too. He was very talkative and stared telling me
about himself. He used to be a sniper in
the marines, and afterwards he was a bodyguard for various rich people, I
suppose. One time he was in a coma for
more than a month. During the time he
was in the hospital, a man he didn’t know stayed at his bedside and prayed for
him. After the marine recovered, he
found the man who had prayed for him.
Though he wanted to do something to thank him for his vigilance, all the
man asked for was the chance to share his faith with the marine. The former marine I’d been talking to was
saved through this experience. That man
had prayed at the bedside of several other soldiers, who also met Jesus through
him. Those soldiers all came to the
praying man’s funeral, and they shared stories about his faithfulness to them,
even when he didn’t know them.
The service was starting soon, so I went into the sanctuary
with a girl named Helia who I’d met at the picnic
last week. She was amazed that I
remembered her name (so was I, come to think of it, but I’ve forgotten what
country she’s from). Jeff came a little late
and joined us in our pew.
Today I had another picnic, with LASER this time. I headed directly home from church so I could
get the pies together. The berry pie was
still pretty juicy, so I put it on some paper towels in the back of Shang Zhu’s car (she came with Yao to pick me up). The two ice-cream cartons had plenty of room
in that huge cooler, even after adding all of the icepacks Jamie had given
me. When we were bringing in the bounty,
Yao carried the berry pie. That pie
rudely spilled its juice on Yao’s capris. Thankfully Yao took it well and just laughed about
it and showed the stain to everyone. She
joked that it looked like blood, like she’d been hurt.
As seems to happen often with cookouts, there was much
dispute and time wasted with getting the coals started. Leon (Lori’s husband, remember?) insisted
that they should not use fire starter.
But nothing was happening without it.
Finally, the rest of the pyromaniacs had their way and poured on the
starter. The coals were burning in no
time.
During
the picnic, almost the whole lab talked politics the whole time. The subject bored and frustrated me at the
same time. I was probably the only one
there who disagreed with them, but I am not interested or informed enough to
argue with them. I just stayed out of
their conversation and wandered around with Anastasia and played a bit of
Frisbee instead.
Everyone really enjoyed the pies. Lori got the first slice of the berry pie and
exclaimed over how good it was. Almost
everyone took her cue and got a piece of that pie. It’s a good thing we didn’t bring 3 cartons
of ice-cream, though, because we didn’t even finish one.
Although rain had been predicted today, it thankfully held
off until the moment we were packing up.
We had to run to our cars with our food.
Anastasia, Yao, and I split up the remaining pies to bring home.
When I got back to my room, I felt really restless and
bored for some unexplainable reason. It
was raining outside, so I couldn’t really go for a bike ride. I was tired of my computer. I just wanted to talk to someone, I
think. I called home and talked to my
sister Emily for a while. It’s been nice
having a room to myself, but today I felt lonely without a roommate.
Today continued the icky rain of yesterday. Since I’d get mud and dirty water up my back
riding my bike, I walked to the lab in the rain. On the way there, I came to this plant that
had fluffy greenish pink poofy things at the end of
every stem. I dubbed this plant a “cloud
plant” for a few reasons. For one thing,
their color and poofiness reminded me of clouds at
sunset. Also, since it was raining, each
poof was heavy with water. I shook some
of the little “clouds” and so much water fell out of them it was like they were
raining.
At today’s meeting, Lori told me that she’d be gone for 2
weeks, so I wouldn’t get her input during that time. She told me to start writing actual code and
making class diagrams. If I had any
questions, I should come to Rachel or the other grad students, or George if he
was there.
I went to the library today. Leslie had given me a letter requesting a
library card, and I handed this to the receptionist. Although I only had 15 minutes until the
library closed, I had a good idea of what I wanted. I rode the super-fast elevators up 26 floors
(I don’t know if I’ve ever been in an elevator that accelerates to such a high
speed…it’d be cool to try an elevator in a hundred-story skyscraper!). Thankfully the books that I wanted were all
on the same floor. I checked out 3 Jane
Austen books as well as Treasure Island.
That way I could test them out and read my favorite.
Today was my first day writing code in a long while. At first I felt really rusty at it and I
wasn’t sure how well I’d recall the basics.
You know how summer can put things out of your mind, and anyway I
haven’t been writing code in a long time.
The classes I’ve been taking lately are more focused on ideas and
concepts than programming. It was a lot
of fun when I got into it, though.
Programming is like solving a complex puzzle. You know what you want your result to be, but
you aren’t always sure how to reach that goal.
I was having fun just throwing something simple together and making it
work, although it wasn’t the most complex thing I’d ever written.
Brendan and Robin had told me that they’d be gone for the
last two weeks that I’d be here.
Although it’d be kind of cool to have the house to myself, I wasn’t sure
I’d like that after how bored and lonely I’d been on Sunday night. I’m used to having a roommate or family
around all the time. Not only that, but
I’d get nervous alone in their house at night.
So you can tell why I was glad when Anastasia said she’d love to move in
during those two weeks. Anastasia
couldn’t stand the place she was staying, and I wanted to avoid
loneliness. It sounded like a perfect
plan, except for the possibility that we would get on each other’s nerves too
much. Anastasia and I have a lot of
differences in personality, but Anastasia said she’d gotten used to my quirks
and I was sure I could handle hers as well.
We’re learning just to laugh at our peculiarities instead of being
irritated by them.
I showed Rachel the program I wrote yesterday. She chided me for neglecting to add comments
as I wrote my code. That’s a bad habit
beginning programmers can get into. In
case you aren’t familiar with programming, a comment is just what it sounds
like – it’s a note in the middle of your code written in plain English to
explain what you’re doing. For instance:
//write
“Hello!” on the screen x times
for
(i = 0; i < x; ++i)
System.out.println(“Hello!”);
In this case, the comment is
written after the //. The code below the
comment actually does the work that the comment describes. This makes code much easier to read, because
you should be able to read the description of the code without having to figure
out what the code is actually doing. I
usually add comments when I finish my program.
The problem with that is I can forget why you did something earlier on,
especially if my program gets really big and complex. Rachel also told me I should do more planning
before I actually write code. This is
what software engineering is all about – planning your code to be its best
structurally before getting too wrapped up in code.
I drew Legolas this afternoon,
and it’s one of my favorite drawings so far.
Honestly, I’ve never been much of a Legolas /
Orlando Bloom fan, even though I’m a big LOTR fan (“LOTR,” in case you haven’t
caught on yet, is “Lord of the Rings”).
I do like the angle of the picture I drew, though, and I like how I
captured his concentrated expression. To
think I used to be afraid of drawing people!
I guess I was inspired by Sheena to learn how to draw people
better. I really enjoy it too, as long
as I’m drawing from a photo. I still
haven’t been happy with any live portraits I’ve done.
I was up really late last night on the internet, doing
nothing in particular (“Fritterin' away their
noontime, suppertime, choretime, too”). So this
morning I didn’t get up until 11. It
doesn’t help much that I’d been reassured over and over again that I didn’t
have to be in the lab from 9 to 5 like a regular job. In fact, they told me I could just stay out
for a day if I wanted. Well, I got an
email from Beth asking for someone to bring dessert for Bible study
tonight. I was in the mood to bake again
(I guess I’m almost always in the mood to bake!) so I decided to make some
cookies today. I looked up chocolate
chip cookies online (isn’t Google a beautiful thing?) and found a billion
variations. I decided to go with the
tried-and-true Toll House recipe, but I still wanted to add a fun variation to
it. Oh, but I couldn’t make any cookies
at all without brown sugar. That was the
only ingredient that we were missing, besides chocolate chips.
I first tried going door-to-door at the neighbor’s houses
to see if they could loan me 3/4 cup of brown sugar (we do this quite a bit at
home). No one was there when I knocked
on their doors. I decided to go on to
the convenience store to buy the unique chocolate chips. Instead of plain old chocolate chips, I
bought bags of M&M’s and Reese’s Pieces to go in the cookies. And, hallelujah, what should be on the next
shelf but brown sugar! I bought my
supplies and biked back to the house.
After I finished the cookies, I didn’t feel like going to the
lab at all. I just took the rest of the
afternoon off, doing some business calls and that sort of thing.
At Bible study tonight we got into quite a discussion. The parable was about praying continuously,
but in this case Jesus used a negative example to make his point. The parable tells the story of a widow who
asked for justice in a certain matter from a judge. This judge cared for no one, but since the
widow was consistent and did not give up, he gave her what she wanted against
his own will. Jesus said that if even
this uncaring judge would heed the widow’s pleas, certainly our good God would
hear us? Andy had an issue with this
example. We were talking about praying
without ceasing, but if God is better than this judge, why can’t we just pray
once and have it over with? It does seem
strange that we should go to God in prayer repeatedly when he knows what we are
going to ask before we ask it. I’ve
heard a few things regarding that. For
one thing, praying without ceasing can be good for us. It reminds us how dependent we are on
God. A small child is very persistent
because they are needy, and we are supposed to become like children. Also, praying is one way that God works
through us. I heard one person say that
it’s like a partnership with God. He
doesn’t need us, obviously, but he chooses to use us through our prayers. How awesome is that?
Since I’d missed work yesterday, I came in at 9:00 today
kind of to make up for it. I brought a
bag with all of the cookies left over from last night. No one else was there at that time – the main
LASER lab room was closed, and my little room was dark and empty. I settled into my usual work a little / rest
a little mode. I’ve found that with
research it’s very hard to work straight through the day. I’ll work a while and run into a snag. Usually I have to take a break from that
particular problem so that I can come back to it with a fresh mind.
Yao and Anastasia came in at around lunch time. After lunch, I started drawing Bugs
Bunny. It’s actually kind of challenging
to draw cartoons, because the lines used in cartoons are so bold and precise. When I sketch something from real life, the
lines are usually ragged and, well…sketchy.
I guess cartoonists start out that way too, but they end up with a hard,
dark edge.
Yao was very curious about Bugs Bunny. We found the Loony Toons
website, and I started describing the different characters. Know what I realized? Almost every Loony Toons
character has a speech impediment! Bugs
is ok, but Daffy Duck and Sylvester both lisp, Elmer Fudd
can’t say his “r’s,” Porky Pig stutters, and Tweety talks plain weird.
Yao thought that the idea of Pepe Le Pew was
hilarious.
George asked me how things were going, and I told him about
Rachel’s suggestions yesterday. We
talked for awhile about the differences between beginners’ programming and real
software engineering. In the laser lab
they are very particular about carefully planning before you program. However, George did say it’s ok to write some
simple code quickly just to get an idea of what you will need. He called this “rapid prototyping.” I think that’s what I did.
After I talked to George, I worked more on specifications
for the summary description class. I got
6 pages of notes written!
Anastasia and I went to Antonio’s for dinner. I think this is at least the third or fourth
time I’ve been there. But the fun thing
is that I can have something totally different every time.
Our neighbors grow squash – tons of it. They sell some of it at the farmer’s market
downtown, but they have so much extra that they go door-to-door in our
neighborhood with bags of it, trying to give it away. Brendan and Robin have been looking for
creative ways to use up this stuff.
Robin put some squash in quesadillas, which was a pretty yummy
idea. We were all getting tired of this
squash, and we still had two grocery bags of it in the fridge. I wanted to get rid of that confounded
squash, so I asked Robin for a suggestion.
She told me you can use summer squash in place of zucchini in a zucchini
bread recipe. So I found a recipe for
zucchini cake, grated up the squash, and made some muffins. Wow, they were good! I thought that squash in muffins might taste
a little weird, but it actually helped them to be more moist.
Brendan and Robin left for Michigan today. They’re going to camp on a remote island in
the Great Lake. The place they’re
staying can only be hiked to. Anyway,
since they’re gone now, Anastasia and I worked on moving her stuff into the
house. We had an entertaining time
stuffing our backpacks as full as they could get (they were positively
bulging), then biking to the house.
Robin was kind enough to allow Anastasia to borrow her bike
during her stay here. Anastasia was
positively delighted, and she wanted to take use that bike as soon as we put
her stuff in the room where she’d be staying.
So the two of us set out on a trip to North Amherst. That’s the area where Steve brought us to
lunch at Daisy’s before. When we got to
the intersection near Daisy’s we decided to take a right, just to see what was
out there. A certain road caught my eye
as we passed it. I called to Anastasia,
and we turned back to explore that road.
Somehow it looked familiar. It
reminded me of the road Sarah turned onto when she brought me to Puffer’s Pond.
The road looked a bit different when we turned onto
it. I didn’t remember the houses that
lined either side before. But we kept
going until we came to an intersection.
I was thinking about turning, but Anastasia wanted to go straight. We crossed straight through the intersection,
went a little way, and voila! What
should appear on the left but Puffer’s Pond itself! Anastasia was ecstatic! She hadn’t been swimming all summer, and
thankfully she already had her bathing suit on because she’d been sunbathing
earlier. I waded into the pond a bit
while she happily swam around.
Next, we headed to the Hillel
house (the Jewish housing Anastasia had been staying in). Anastasia had made plans with her friends
(three of whom were Russian as well) to order some chicken wings and watch a
movie. We brought The Two Towers
Extended Edition DVD :-). The only
problem was, there was no DVD player at the Hillel
house (except one girl’s laptop, but it’s not very easy for a group of people
to watch a movie on a laptop screen). I
suggested that we just take the chicken wings and head over to my place! It wasn’t a very long walk there from Hillel. I was
embarrassed, though, by the state the kitchen was in. I’d been baking earlier in the day and hadn’t
cleaned up from that yet. The girls were
really kind to help me with the dishes, so they didn’t take nearly as long to do.
This viewing of The Two Towers was fairly “irreverent,” if
you get what I mean. Sometimes I’m in a
silly mood when I watch LOTR movies, and this was one such time. We joked around about a lot of things, making
fun of the characters or situations. It
was fun, though Anastasia told me afterwards she’d like to watch it over again
so I could explain the movie to her.
Again, I walked to First Baptist Church this morning, and
again I enjoyed the relaxing experience of walking instead of driving. After the service, there was a reception for
a man’s 90th birthday! Jess (another
girl from Bible study), Jeff and I made lunch of it, since they had all these
little sandwiches and things. We sat on
the back steps of the church and talked about Jess’s skydiving adventure and
last Bible study’s topic (Jeff had missed Bible study due to a training program
for work).
When I got back from church, Anastasia was out for a bike
ride. When she got back, she absolutely
scoured the bathroom. (She is almost
obsessive-compulsive sometimes) After
she was done, we had leftovers for dinner, and ice-cream with peanut butter for
dessert. You should try ice-cream with
peanut butter! It’s great, especially if
you have some chocolate sauce to add.
Then it tastes like Reese’s :-).
Jamie and Rachel invited us to their house to make chicken
pot pie tonight. If you’ve known me for
a while, you probably know that I love to make chicken pot pie! I’m fairly particular about it, too. The crust is the most important part – it has
to be whole wheat with celery seeds.
While we were preparing the pie, I kept asking for kitchen
tools, and sometimes I didn’t know the name for the tool I wanted. We kept describing tools as “thingies” or
“thingamajigs.” Anastasia kept laughing
at us Americans.
The pot pie turned out a little different than I wanted
because we used unsalted butter. I
would’ve tasted the crust and the filling before putting it in the oven, but I
don’t think Anastasia would’ve appreciated that. We just added salt and pepper to each slice
before we ate it.
After dinner, we played a game called Settlers of Catan. I kept
hearing about this game, and it got my curiosity up. The people in Bible study talked about it as
well as Jamie and Rachel, though I’ve never heard of it before I came to
MA. So, naturally I wanted to try it
out. It’s a pretty cool strategy-based
game where you build settlements on a board that has hexagonal sections
representing resources that are necessary for building and expanding. You can trade with other teammates for
supplies you’re missing. For instance,
if your settlement has a lot of forests around it, you can trade your wood for
someone else’s iron ore. It’s pretty
fun, but it takes a bit of getting used to.
The cool thing about it is that the board changes every time you play,
so the strategy is different every time.
Tonight Anastasia and I had two of her Russian friends,
Natasha and Alina over to bake. I’d told them before about the pizzas I’d
made. Natasha and Anastasia both asked
if I could teach them how to make pizza dough.
I was glad to! I love baking with
people! First Anastasia and I biked to
the grocery store to get ingredients, then we called the girls over. We had tons of cheese in the fridge, and we
grated a little of everything. We used
cheddar, romano, mozzarella, pepper jack, and bleu
cheese. We had quite a variety of
toppings, too – onions, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms. Mmm these little
pizzas were piled as high as they could go.
Meanwhile, we made more squash muffins. There were so many still left in the
refrigerator, and Anastasia and I loved the first batch of muffins so much that
we decided to make enough muffins to use up the rest of the squash. This meant that we quadrupled the recipe we
had. Since the original recipe makes
about 15 muffins, we ended up making 60!
We had such a huge amount of batter that we had to make it in a stew pot
because Brendan and Robin didn’t have a big enough mixing bowl.
We watched the movie Big Fish, which is about a man
who made up tall tales about his life and his son who is trying to find truth
in his legends. It was a strange movie
(as should be expected from a movie about tall tales), but I liked the main
character’s personality.
I brought the squash muffins to work today. People really enjoyed them, and I got 5
requests for the recipe!
George came in to check on me and suggested some design
patterns I could use for my program. He
started explaining a pattern called MVC – Model View Controller. Though I’d probably heard of this pattern
before in my Software Design class, I needed to be refreshed on how it
worked. George spent quite some time
bringing me to the lab to look for a book that described this pattern, asking
people to explain it to me, and suggesting that I get a book from the
library. I don’t know if I needed that
much help, but I’m glad he was so thorough to be sure I understood.
I drew a momma giraffe kissing her baby today. It’s one of the cutest pictures ever. I first saw that image in an email my mom
sent me.
Tonight was the last night of College Church’s Bible
study. It was a little strange saying
goodbye to these people who I’ve only known for less than 10 weeks. They were very gracious though, and told me
they were glad I came.
Anastasia and I headed back to Puffer’s Pond today. We left a little early from the lab and biked
over. I really wanted to swim there like
I had with Sarah, but Anastasia just wanted to tan. Of course, I could’ve swam by myself, but
that’s not as much fun. We lay out our
towels and settled in – then the sun went behind a huge cloud. And the sun seemed to go behind one cloud
after another for quite a while. We got
kind of frustrated, because at noon the sun was so strong that it reddened my
leg just during lunch. I wasn’t so keen
on tanning anyway, so I just read my Treasure Island book and relaxed. Treasure Island is a pretty fun story, but
like an action-adventure film it doesn’t have much emotional value. I like the pirate talk, though.
After
a couple of hours, Anastasia and I had to return home so that I could go to
Bible study. I called the house to see
if I could get a ride. Allie told me
that instead of Bible study, we were just going to have a fun night
tonight. They were going to come pick me
up on the way out to a restaurant and putt-putt. Not many people came tonight, so we all fit
into one car. We went to Bertucci’s since I hadn’t been there yet. We got lots of rolls, which we dipped in
olive oil and oregano.
When we were done with dinner, we rode over to the
putt-putt place. I don’t think I’ve ever
played mini-golf before that night. I
remember going to Putt-Putt when I was little, but I think I was too nervous
about messing up that I didn’t play on the actual course. Instead, I stayed inside and played arcade
games. It’s good I don’t have that fear
anymore, because I was one of the worst players out of everyone. But I had lots of fun anyway! We all just joked around, and we weren’t very
strict about the rules. Thankfully they
put a cap of 5 points on every hole, or I would’ve had an insanely high amount
of points. I did get a
hole-in-one at one point. But that was
pure chance, because it was one of those things where your ball goes through a
tunnel to the hole on the other side.
Mine just happened to come out just right. I didn’t let that lessen my celebration of
the momentous occasion, though.
Remember when we made that chicken pot pie at Jamie and
Rachel’s house? That was on Monday,
wasn’t it? Well, every day since then,
Anastasia and I have brought chicken pot pie for lunch. It’s the best thing ever – my favorite meal
for sure. But to be perfectly honest,
I’m glad that today was the last day we ate that stuff. I think that’s partially because we made it
with unsalted butter. I totally enjoyed
it, but I must admit Anastasia and I were glad when we were done with it
too! Today Steve actually came out to
eat with us. Funny, I never see anyone
but grad students during lunch. Steve
said he’d read some of this journal, and that he was glad I was learning about
the evils of Wal-Mart.
Robin was awesome enough to leave Anastasia and me a gift
certificate to a nearby restaurant. With
it she included a note saying “For some night when you and Anastasia want to
get your meat fix.” Anastasia’s always
aching for some good meat, so we went out tonight to make use of that
certificate. We strolled to the
restaurant, which is right outside our neighborhood. When I got in (I don’t know what I was
thinking), I handed the gift certificate to the greeter at the door. They somehow thought that we were coming in
to pay for our meal, so they were subtracting the certificate from someone’s
bill, thinking it was ours! Anastasia
and I stood for quite a while at the front, wondering what was going on. Finally Anastasia spoke up and said we hadn’t
gotten our meal yet and why couldn’t we be seated? The waitresses were a bit confused, but
thankfully everything got straightened out and we got our certificate
back. Man, I can be absent-minded
sometimes.
Anyway, so when we finally got seated and had a look at our
menus, we both decided that barbecue would be a good thing. Man, I love salads, I adore sandwiches, and I
could almost be a vegetarian most of the time.
But once in a while, I do need some of that down home cooking, some of
that “comfort food,” as some people call it.
This was one of those nights. I
was ready to sink my teeth into some meat (sorry for those of you who are real
vegetarians). We couldn’t decide between
the pulled pork or the half chicken. So
we got both! Anastasia got the chicken and
I got the pork (man, I almost never eat red meat!) and we shared between the
two of us. Mmm
it was so much food we definitely couldn’t finish it all. We had enough for lunch tomorrow!
Once we got back, Anastasia and I decided to rent The
Return of the King tonight to complete our viewing of the trilogy. We both got on our bikes and headed down to
the Blockbuster next to our favorite Stop n’ Shop. We took a different way back to avoid the
huge hill I trudged up earlier. This way
was much longer, though it was easier.
It was kind of getting dark out by the time we got back. We enjoyed the movie, of course :-).
Today was my last time at First Baptist Church of
Amherst. Saying goodbye was a little bit
sad, but I am ready to return to my home church. I have so much fun in my little charismatic
church in the mountains :-).
When I got home, I wanted to have more fun exploring on my
bike. Anastasia asked to come
along. I was thinking that she wouldn’t
like the kind of bike ride I was planning, but I told her she could come if she
wanted.
Of course, I wanted to go back into the woods and on dirt
paths. I returned to the path I rode on
previously. Remember that beautiful
panorama photo I got before? This area
had been lush and green and full of wildflowers. But when we came back this time, for some
reason all of the beautiful flowers had been mowed down. In their place there were just dry, brown
brambles. This made me think of the
movie Big Fish. In that movie, the main
character stumbles onto this heavenly town called Spectre. Though he’s tempted to stay there, he leaves
in search of adventure before he’s even been there a day. He returns to Spectre
later in life to find that it was practically a ghost town. My little piece of paradise had disappeared
in the same way.
Near my little Spectre, there was
a little pond. I thought I saw
something orange glittering in the water.
So we pulled over and saw scores of goldfish filling the pond. There were also a whole lot of catfish. I guess some college kids let their goldfish
go here so they could grow into carp.
Anastasia finally got tired of my off-road biking
habits. I must hand it to her, she did
hang on for quite some time. She even
followed me when I plunged into a narrow path where the trees were so close in
that I was brushing past their branches on either side. I thought it was awesome, like a jungle or
something. She wasn’t so pleased as I
was. What can I say, Anastasia’s just
more of a city girl. She took her leave
and went back to the house.
Meanwhile, I found an absolutely gorgeous forest. Like most of the forests I’ve seen up north,
there is much less undergrowth here than down south. There’s a thick layer of leaves and needles
on the ground. The trees are mostly
deciduous. I saw some birch trees, whose
white bark seemed to glow in the muted light.
There were ferns in one area and some of those white plants called
Indian pipes. The forest seemed
otherworldly, like something in Middle-Earth.
The thing in these woods that brought me back to the real
world was these bike jumps that someone built.
There was a wide variety of embankments and ramps for crazy mountain
bikers to enjoy. I steered clear of
these things, not wanting to hurt myself or my bike. The trail wound slowly downhill. It ended next to a street. There were two big boulders, and across the
street there was a marvelous view of the mountains. I sat on one of the rocks and just I gazed at
the view. I love quiet moments like
that.
I walked my bike back up through the woods. When I got back to the top, I took another
grassy trail just to see where it would lead.
Man, this could’ve gone on forever.
But it ended abruptly. I was
coasting downhill when I turned a corner and had to put on my breaks to avoid
running into a dead end. Apparently I
applied the brakes too hard, and I was leaning over too far. Next thing I knew, I was flying over the
handlebars. The bike kept going and flew
over me, hitting me on the helmet. It
was quite a spectacular fall for the unimpressive hill I was going down. Thankfully I was ok except for a couple of
scrapes on my elbows and bruises on my legs.
My bike didn’t come out so well.
The back wheel was slightly bent out of shape so that the brake would
rub against it once every rotation. I
still managed to pedal back home in one piece, fortunately.
Lori looked at the software plan I had laid out today. I told her I felt kind of stuck. It’s hard for me to know what I need to add
to my program until I’m actually building the program itself. So Lori gave me the go-ahead to apply the
design I’d made to the little program I wrote.
I started tweaking my code and neatening things up.
Today was Anastasia’s presentation! During our Analysis meeting, Anastasia had to
stand up and explain what she’d been doing this summer. She used PowerPoint to show her project. This summer she worked with parallel computing. Parallel computing is when you use multiple
computers to solve a huge problem.
Though both of us were working in the same room, we didn’t necessarily
know much about each other’s projects. I
found hers to be quite impressive, especially since she had to learn a new
programming language to complete it.
Tonight Anastasia and I had a nice, fancy dinner. We made spaghetti, but added leftover pizza
toppings to our sauce. I made garlic
bread in the way that it was served in the North End of Boston. I buttered some pumpernickel bread and topped
it with crushed garlic, onions, and tomatoes.
I topped all of this with provolone cheese (my invention) and toasted it
in the oven. It tasted quite good,
though perhaps a little too garlicky. We
brought our entire meal outside and had a picnic on the front lawn. We spent some time gazing at the sky and
finding shapes in the clouds. That was a
really nice meal.
Anastasia and I headed back to Boston today! We took a day off from the lab so that we
could go see the Lord of the Rings Exhibit in the Boston Museum of
Science. We bought tickets online (which
were “timed” for 10:45) and took the bus into town.
It took forever to get there. First of all, we had to wait a really long
time for the subway we needed to arrive at the station. Then, the line to the museum was under
construction, so we had to get a shuttle to bring us the rest of the way. The shuttle took a long while to arrive,
too. In the end, we got to the exhibit
45 minutes late! Instead of arriving
there at the time on our tickets (10:45), we got there at 11:30. I didn’t understand how “timed” tickets work,
so I was worried that it could have expired.
It didn’t seem fair for that to be museum policy, but I wasn’t sure how
they ran things. Anyway, when I stuck my
credit card into the ticket machine, it said I didn’t have any tickets. I asked the guy at the help desk, and he told
me that I hadn’t actually bought tickets, but I had a reservation (sound
familiar?). So I bought two tickets and
we went on into the exhibit.
Man, this was absolutely awesome. We stayed in the exhibit for 3 hours (though
I’m afraid Anastasia was ready to leave before I was…). This exhibit had scores of real props and
costumes from the Lord of the Rings movies.
Here are the things I saw there (if you don’t “get” Lord of the Rings,
you might want to skip this bit!):
Aragorn’s travel clothes: These clothes are made out of leather. Up close it almost has a suede look to it
(boy, I wish I could’ve touched it…).
You could see his overcoat and the way that the shoulders are laced up
rather than stitched, so that they can be easily removed (you need multipurpose
clothes when traveling many leagues).
The boots were really cool, too.
Theoden’s armor: Oh, man this was probably the most memorable
piece in the entire exhibit. There are
so many little details they added to Theoden’s armor
that will never be seen on the movie.
But that’s the spirit of these films – to make things so rich and so
detailed that they really do seem real.
Every inch of this leather armor was carefully pounded with images of
horses. Many of the larger images were
“gilded,” such as the large horse-head insignia on the front of the chest plate. Smaller, and thus harder-to-see images also
decorated this piece. There were tiny
battles between horsemen and warg-riders depicted in
the indented leather. I just stood and
stared at this piece of art for a long time.
Shards of Narsil and Anduril: The
part of The Fellowship of the Ring that makes my sister Michelle shudder
– the Shards of Narsil. I couldn’t help but smile when I thought
about the way she reacts every time Boromir says
“Still sharp!” The shards were displayed
on a silk cloth, like in the movie. Anduril, Aragorn’s sword which was reforged
from Narsil, was also on display. There was a man carrying a model of Anduril, which people could hold if they wore white gloves
and kept it pointed toward the ceiling.
I wish I could’ve swung it around a bit, but I don’t want to hurt anyone
(besides, it was against company policy).
Arwen’s sword: This was beautiful, though it didn’t exist in
the books, and it only had, like, 15 seconds of screen time. This sword is gracefully curved and inscribed
with elven writing.
I can read Tengwar (the name for one type of elven alphabet), but I don’t understand the elven languages (Quenya and Sindarin, if you were curious). So, sadly I couldn’t understand what was
written there. But I loved knowing that
it really did mean something.
Miniatures:
There were miniatures which they built for Saruman’s
tower, Isengard, Sauron’s
fortress, Barad-dur, and a decayed version of Hobbiton which had been made for Frodo’s vision in
Galadriel’s mirror. Once again, these
things were detailed down to the last window and the smallest rock. There was a little video describing how the Isengard model had been used for the flood scene in The
Two Towers.
Lurtz statue: Across from the Isengard
model, there was a life-sized statue of Lurtz. He was a Uruk-Hai
invented for the movies. Woah, it was freaky to look up at him looming over
you. Not only was he tall to start with,
he was placed on a pedestal behind glass so that you had to look up at his
icky, evil face. Remember, I’m not used
to looking up to people :-).
Galadriel’s costume:
Though simple in shape, her dress and cloak are intricately embroidered
with shining white thread and tiny, glittering beads. What painstaking detail went into the
trailing pattern that covered this costume!
Gandalf’s travel clothes: Yay! I loved this one. This was not so elaborate or showy as some
other things, but the woolen texture of Gandalf’s clothes – the mud thrown up
onto his riding-cloak, the boots (there’s something cool about these shoes that
don’t show up on film), the travel bag, the “big, pointy hat” – they were all
there in 3D.
Books: Oh,
the joy of books! These are wonderful,
because I got to read some of the writing.
What beautiful, ancient paper and flowing, calligraphic script! There were scrolls which Gandalf had looked
through in Minas Tirith, one of which described the
ancient doings of the Rohirrim. I also found the book Bilbo had been writing,
There and Back Again (sadly, it was closed). The book Saruman
was flipping through in the Fellowship was there, open to the page with
the Balrog picture.
The opposite page was written in elvish
script, but I still tried to make out what was written. I could only read one word “mithril.” I was
quite excited to find that, even if it was a small accomplishment.
Elrond’s telescope:
This appears in the Return of the King when Arwen
comes back to tell Elrond she is still going to give up her immortal life to
marry Aragorn. I always thought this was
a cool device when I saw it in the movie, since the lenses are suspended in a
frame without a tube surrounding them. I
wonder how useful a telescope like that would be.
Banners: At
one time, I just happened to look up to the ceiling. And boy, I’m glad I did! There were banners hanging up there! They were various standards from Gondor and Rohan. Some were thin, meant to be flown from the
ends of spears while riding. Others were
large standards. I recognized one in
particular as the flag from the extended Two Towers DVD. It’s a beautiful one – white with a golden
tree.
Boromir’s double:
Ok, this display was awesome, but it kind of freaked me out. This was an incredibly realistic silicon
model of Boromir for the scene where he floats down
the river in an elven boat. Really, the hair and face and clothes made me
almost think that he would jump up at me and yell “surprise!” The clothes were absolutely amazing (his
costume is my favorite in Fellowship), complete with mud on his boots
:-).
There were a few interactive exhibits. One allowed you to use a foam sword and
shield and a camera would watch you and translate your movements into movements
of a computer graphic elf or orc. Anastasia and I had fun with a “scaling” exhibit. There were two pieces of a bench, one large
and one small, in front of a green screen.
I had a green shirt on that day, so I took the opportunity to test out
the screen. The computer made my shirt
become invisible so my neck and arms were just floating in midair. For the actual picture, I used the smock they
provided there. Anyway, when I sat in
the big bench, I looked hobbit-sized, and when I sat in the small bench I looked
human-sized. Anastasia and I took turns
on either side of the bench, so she finally had a chance to “look down” on
me. I put the resulting picture in my
gallery.
Anastasia and I were quite hungry by the time I felt ready
to leave. We bought some of that
super-expensive museum food, then made use of the general museum pass that came
along with our Lord of the Rings ticket.
We didn’t spend that much time there, but we wandered through, stopping
at the most interesting displays.
After we got out of
the museum, we tried to find our way to the North End again. Last time we were there, we were told about
Mike’s Pastry. We heard so many
recommendations for that place that we simply had to try it out. We headed in what we hoped was the right
direction, since we didn’t have our map anymore. Thankfully, we saw a police officer and asked
him for directions. Thankfully, all the
people we met in Boston are friendly and willing to help. With help from the officer and a few other
people along the way (and one interesting situation trying to ask a guy in an
Asian restaurant who didn’t speak English), we found the North End. Mike’s Pastry was full of so many yummy
bakery items that it was difficult to choose.
I asked them what their specialty was, and they pointed me to their “cannoli.” These are
crispy, tube-shaped pastry wraps with cream filling. Anastasia and I both got one and went outside
to enjoy them. Outside, we watched the
neighborhood life. I heard some people
speaking in Italian, which I found fascinating.
When we finished our pastries, we got on the T to go to
Harvard. This time, we got to experience
Harvard Square without the rain. It was
still not that impressive to me, but it was definitely more pleasant in the
sun! Last time we were here, we’d
forgotten to visit a Middle-Eastern coffee shop Steve had told us about. We weren’t able to find it, but we did find a
Malaysian restaurant. We got yummy
seafood (Anastasia was so glad to have some non-kosher shrimp!). I ordered squid, and I got this huge bowl of
noodles and little squids with their tentacles and everything. It tasted really good, though Anastasia
thought it was a bit freaky.
We managed to get to the bus stop early this time. Instead of running like crazy to the
terminal, we could relax on benches and wait for the bus to arrive. Our ride home went ok, but when we got to
Amherst, there skies broke loose with a torrential downpour! We tried waiting out the storm under an
awning, but it didn’t look like it was going to let up. So we dashed through town, ducking in the
rain. Things calmed down a little bit by
the time we got to the neighborhood, but we were soaked to the bone.
Well, due to the crazy bike-flipping stunt I pulled on
Sunday, my bike was in need of repairs.
Anastasia and I went to the bike shops in town and compared prices. One guy told us he would have to replace the
entire back wheel, which would cost as much as $85. The other guy told us he could “true” the
wheel (straighten it out by adjusting the spokes) for $15. Obviously, the cheaper option sounded better,
but I had difficulty deciding because the eighty-five dollar guy said the wheel
would get back out of shape if it was trued.
Anastasia had to help me decide – I finally had the wheel trued, with
the thought that if it did get back out of shape, I could buy a new wheel. But if it didn’t, I would save 70
dollars. I’m hoping it doesn’t.
This afternoon, I had a final meeting with Lori, George,
and Rachel. It was a really encouraging
experience. I showed my whole project to
them and we talked about how I should actually present it. During this time, I realized how much I have
done. I was kind of feeling like I
hadn’t accomplished much before, but they told me my work will be useful to
them! It felt really good to hear that.
I spent today refining my presentation, since I’m showing
it to the whole lab tomorrow! I’m kind
of nervous, but I’ll be glad to finalize my project.
This afternoon, Lori took me out for lunch again. We went to the new Crepe place downtown. We talked about the possibility of me going
to grad school. I said that I was
definitely considering that. Lori told
me that I should contact her when it came time to apply, so she could advise me
and write a recommendation. Lori also
brought me to the bike shop, where I found my bike in good condition (yay!). I asked if
they had a bike box, (thankfully they did) and requested that they package my
bike for me. I was going to pick it up later.
Rachel took me and Yao back to the bike shop later to pick
it up. The box was just a little bit too
big for the car. If it were only an inch
or two shorter, we could have closed the doors.
As it was, though, we needed a bigger vehicle. Rachel called Heather (from the lab), who
thankfully has a Subaru. We fit the big
box easily in Heather’s trunk. I got in
Heather’s car, and Yao got in Rachel’s.
Somehow we got split up leaving the bike shop, so Rachel didn’t know
where we’d gone. But Heather and I made
it to the Student Center easily enough and I brought the big ol’ box into the FedEx center. The lady there was really nice, and I was
happy to find out that shipping my 40 pound bike box to Raleigh was only
$14.44! I was thinking it would be tons
more expensive.
The rest of the afternoon, I was in a really happy
mood. I was going home soon, my bike had
been shipped, Lori was happy with what I’d done…yup, things were good.
Tonight was my last night at the Navigators Bible
study. This time, we met at Beth and
Leon’s house and had pizza. Things were
really relaxed, and their kitty Eowyn kept poking
around the room. Everyone laughed and
chatted a lot. I found out that Jeff
could indeed give me a ride to the airport.
It worked out pretty well – he had to go in that direction anyway for a
company picnic in Mystic Seaport. He
invited me to come along, and I said sure.
Why not, if free food is involved! ;-)
Oh, speaking of food, Leon made the most wonderful brownies
tonight. They have cheesecake topping,
and we ate them while they were still warm.
Oooh, yum I got the recipe and I hope to make
my own sometime soon.
I made some last fixes to my presentation and took notes to
remind me what to say. Then I practiced
on Anastasia (I think it was kind of repetitive…I might have bored her a
bit). It was good practice anyway.
Lori took the whole lab out for lunch today! Everyone was in a great mood and chatting
happily. Of course, Lori took us to her
favorite restaurant, Judie’s. Her
husband, Leon, skipped out on the event, saying he had things to do. We all knew better – he just doesn’t like
that restaurant.
When we got back – the moment arrived. Our LASER meeting was devoted to my
presentation (talk about pressure :-O).
Thankfully, it went quite smoothly.
Everyone was polite and attentive, and some people even asked questions. I just hope I didn’t drone on too much. ;-)
After my presentation, I got a group picture of our entire
lab. Then I wrapped everything up to
leave. I emailed my work to Lori,
George, and Rachel with notes explaining what they were for. I hope what I’ve done will be useful.
Anastasia, Yao and I went out for dinner tonight. This was our last time together. It started to dawn on me how much I’d miss
them :-(. We had a lot of fun together,
walking to the restaurant and talking about various things. I was really happy to find out that they
shared my opinions on dating. Yao was
surprised to find out that I was a “traditionalist,” as she put it. But think about it – the Chinese perception
of America is what they can get from TV.
So they think we all live like the people in soap operas. Scary.
Yao generously treated us for ice-cream at Bart’s. We were so full after our sushi dinner, but
who can pass up ice-cream, especially from someone as nice as Yao? :-D
When we got back, Anastasia and I were in sad, but silly,
moods. We were both sad about our
parting tomorrow. I knew I needed to
pack (heh, I was leaving tomorrow at 10:00 and I
hadn’t packed yet!), but I wanted to hang out with Anastasia a little
longer. We joked and talked and
complained about the internet that kept getting busted for no apparent reason. While we were in the basement trying to
restart that silly router yet another time, we picked up some random pieces of
wood on the floor and started pretending to swordfight. Our battle progressed up to the first floor,
and we “fought” with varying styles, from fencing, to “hack n’ slash”
swordplay, to martial-arts-type staff spinning (you know what I mean). We were having so much fun, but the TV was in
danger from our gusto, so we had to call off the battle.
It really didn’t take that long to pack. It’s always easier to pack to leave a place
than to get there, since you don’t have to choose what to bring. I didn’t know whether all of my stuff would
fit back in my bags, since I did have a little more stuff. I only had two new shirts and some papers, so
thankfully, they didn’t make much of a difference. There was one thing that I thought I would
have to carry separately – my helmet.
But with a bit of rearranging, I fit it into my backpack along with my
laptop. I’d tested my backpack to the
utter limits of its capacity this summer, and I had to take full advantage of
it for the ride home. In the end, I had
my backpack, a duffel bag, and a huge rolling suitcase.
I woke up this morning totally excited to leave, but bummed
that my time here was over. I cleaned up
my room, moving the inflatable bed out of the way to vacuum the entire
floor. And – lo and behold! – there,
underneath the bed, were my sunglasses which I’d been missing! I had signed those things off for good, thinking
I’d left them in someone’s house or something.
I was glad to get them back, because I really like my sunglasses. They’re tinted green, which is my favorite
color :-).
Anastasia got up and helped me to wrap things up. I set out my final rent check on the table
and double-checked my room to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind. I was feeling quite a variety of emotions:
glad to be returning home, sad to leave my home for the summer, relieved to
return to North Carolina, sad to leave the simpler life I’d lived here, but
ready to return to my friends and family back home.
Anastasia and I were sad to leave each other. She and Yao would have our little windowless
room to themselves, and they told me they’re miss me in my cubicle. Anastasia said she’d miss my childish
playfulness, and I’d miss her company and her laugh. Basically, we’d gotten used to each other’s
quirks.
At around 10, Jeff’s Subaru pulled into the driveway, and
Anastasia and I hugged goodbye. :-( :-(
:-(. We got one last farewell picture in
front of the house and it was time to go.
The trip to Mystic Seaport was 2 hours long, but we had fun talking
about various things. He took a strange
route that brought us through cornfields and such (I guess to avoid some of the
main roads). The day was gorgeous –
nice, fluffy white clouds in a bright blue sky.
We arrived at Mystic Seaport at 12:00 for the company picnic. The place where it was being held was quite
cool – it’s kind of an outdoor museum meant to look like Mystic used to be 100
years ago. There were lots of
old-fashioned boats docked there and a horse-drawn carriage. At the picnic they had a raffle drawing. Jeff wanted the computer mouse and I wanted a
DVD set, so Jeff split his tickets between the two, along with a few other
random objects. His name wasn’t drawn,
though. Oh well, none of that stuff was
completely necessary anyway.
After the company owner gave a speech and stuff, it was
about time to go. We left a little
before 3:00 and got to the airport early for my flight. I said ‘bye to Jeff, checked in my baggage,
and headed to my terminal to wait. The
Bradley airport at Hartford, CT is so small and quiet. It’s nothing like RDU at Raleigh, NC. You definitely can’t get lost there as
easily. And the security guards don’t
seem to have much to do, because they were just hanging out and talking when I
came in.
Right now I’m typing on my laptop in Bradley airport. I have my pillow and my computer on my
lap. Hee hee I feel important to be playing around with my electronic
thingy like everyone else does. You know
what I mean, like any time people have to wait for something, they start
messing with their cell phone or their PDA or something. Well, I’ve got my laptop here, so there! :-) I
can’t wait to see my family.
The flight went quickly and smoothly, but I waited forever
for my luggage to come out at the baggage claim area. My entire plane was somehow overlooked,
because we were all standing there for 35 or 40 minutes, waiting for our
bags. While I was standing there, I
heard a familiar voice say “Val!” Yay! It was my
sister Emily! We hugged and talked and
searched for my bags. Thankfully, it
wasn’t too long after she came in that my bags appeared.
We went out to the car, where Dad was waiting for us. Yay, I was so glad
to see them. Emily was all dressed up
because she’d just come from work at the United Colors of Benetton. Well, by my standards, she is dressed up most
of the time, but she was more dressed up than usual.
Next, we went to get Mom from at one of her band member’s
houses. Mom has a jazz band, by the
way. She and Winslow are writing and
recording original songs as demos, in hopes of getting a well-known artist to
perform them on the radio. I got to hear
some of their stuff, and it’s great!
We went from Winslow’s house to eat at Applebee’s. My family doesn’t eat out very often, so it
was a special treat to go out with them.
It was especially nice just to be with Mom and Dad and Emily. Don’t get me wrong, I adore hanging out with
my younger siblings, but there is something special about just being with a few
people from my family. We joked around a
lot, as usual. Emily was ecstatic about
this white jacket she’d just bought. She
got it for really cheap because the zipper was broken, then she managed to fix
it. She was so excited that she even
started telling our waitress about it. My
parents and I teased her about it, and she just laughed along. Mom made some of her trademark corny jokes,
and Dad was his usual crazy self. We
might’ve scared the waitress a bit, but it was so good to be back. And all was right with the world :-).
– The End –
(of my trip to Massachusetts, anyway)