Fire Trees

The trees have burst into beautiful colors of red, orange, and yellow.

Fire.

It’s coming to an end though, as the trees shed their leaves and stand before us bare in the chilly weather of late Fall.

I took this picture on the way back from an ECE 209 (C programming) test.

Many of the trees on the Quad are half-way to winter but this little one was still fully in the Fall spirit.

I realized I haven’t posted in a week… ever since my last post about trees and old friends.

It had been a long week and Friday slipped my mind. Oops.

I try to post pretty regularly.

Saturday, my roommate (Kirsten), boyfriend (Torey), and I made breakfast bowls out of potatoes.

The above is a picture of them before they were baked …

There is an egg under all that cheese and chives.

Let me tell you… worth it. They were quiet tasty.

Then, on Sunday Torey and I met my family at the NC Arboretum and got to see the “Robotic Zoo.” It was neat to see what type of engineering went into building that exhibit. Unfortunately I can’t upload the pictures of those at the moment… so this one will have to do…

I’m working at the desk in the Game Room until midnight tonight… I’ll get back to that now.

Have a great rest of the week, my friends.

I will try to remember to post Friday.

Floating Away from the Tree

Like the leaves in the fall, people often will float away from our tree.

They might not fall far… they might still be in reach… but all the same, they float away.

It’s a bit strange to think back on how each person in your life has shaped you in some way… no matter how long or short the interaction.

It’s also odd to think about how quickly someone can seemingly fade out of your life.

When you step into the same room with someone you spent so many memories with… had so many conversations with… and suddenly you feel you are no longer able to speak with them…

It’s a bit strange.

To care so deeply for someone and wonder if they are still doing okay… yet be unable to utter any words in their direction… it pulls the heart in two.

It’s not that you necessarily regret this change… it’s just that you… kind of miss them.

You want to reach out… but feel yourself pulling back. You think that if they really wanted interaction, they would react. Only to later realize that they probably are thinking the same thing about you.

It can really make you think about all the decisions that have lead you to this point…

Where you are standing side-by-side in the same room with someone who you can clearly remember meeting for the first time…

Who you can remember being the best of friends with…

Who you can remember sharing long conversations with….

Who you can remember arguing at 2am with…

Who you can remember splitting ways with…

And suddenly… who your voice decides to silence itself around.

Life is such a strange journey…

The picture above was taken while walking back to my room from class… the maple leaves are turning red again. It’s that time of year.

Contra on the Quad

The Contra Club at UNCA put on an event tonight called “Contra on the Quad.”

It was fun to both watch and dance with other people…

A nice little end to a long week.

The pictures I took ended up pretty blurry since it was pretty dark and I wasn’t using my “nicer” camera… this is probably one of the better ones from tonight.

Although I haven’t been to many contra dances (2 in 2 years… average of one per year… hm…), it is a lot of fun and I would recommend it to all ages!

If you would like more information about the Old Farmers Ball at Warren Willson College… click here.

You can also check out what is going on in UNCA’s Contra Club by visiting their facebook page here.

Tests and Roller Coasters

Today I had a statics test…

An awful… horrible… no good test that left us all a bit zombie-like.

But you know what? After leaving, feeling like I made a 20% (maybe), I made a 59%… almost a 60%… and I felt like partying.

It is strange to feel so excited about a 59% when in other classes, that grade would leave me feeling defeated.

In this class, though, a 59% is doing fairly well and I’m okay with it.

Earlier, after the exam, my friend / study partner, Ashley, and I were talking about how exams are like being forced to ride a roller coaster you don’t really wanna ride.

The week before the test, while you are studying, is the clicking part. The cart is slowly rising to the top of the coaster… you anticipate the ride down and are preparing yourself for it. The whole time, thinking “why am I doing this to myself?! How did I convince myself this was okay?”

The moment before the test, is like sitting at the top of the roller coaster. You can see the drop… you can see the rest of the ride. You sit there slightly (or really) panicking and waiting for the ride to be over.

Then… there is the ride. The actual test with terrifying, stomach-dropping slopes, loops that flip your brain all over, and other surprises along the way. The whole time you can’t stop thinking “shoot… what did I do?! I need to get off this ride! I can’t wait until this is over!”

You then step off the ride… you turn in your test. It is OVER! You walked away from it and that is what matters. You have this great sense of relief… while possibly also feeling a bit sick from what you just experienced. Either way… you are off the ride… you are no longer a part of what is happening on that ride.

The difference is you probably won’t ever have to get back on that roller coaster if you really hated the experience. Depending on where you are in the class, you will probably have to take another test. Maybe that is like riding a different roller coaster though… different fears… different twists and turns… a new experience with each ride.

I really liked this analogy… it described perfectly how I felt about this statics test.

Later, I thought about some of my experiences with roller coasters and thought of one that perfectly fit into this analogy.

Around 11th or 12th grade, I went on a field trip to Carowinds. Upon arriving, I was faced with the “Intimidator” (pictured above). It was… intimidating to say the least… I don’t like heights.

Somehow, my friends convinced me to ride it. “It’s not that bad… rides really smoothly… not as much clicking,” they said.

LIES!

Haha… it really wasn’t that bad as far as clicking goes… but you are held down by what feels like very little and boy… is it ever so high. About half way up… I started panicking. I felt sick. I kept thinking, “we should have gone over the top by now… oh gosh… I looked down. We are only half way. I just wanna get this over with. Please hurry up…”

Now… I don’t cuss. But it got BAD on the way to the top of this ride. I, almost involuntarily, started chanting “shit shit shit” (to the tune of a clicking roller coasters). I couldn’t stop… I was terrified.

Then we went over the edge, my stomach flew up to my throat and it is was over before I knew it. I was even somehow captured on the camera right as I got enough courage to hold my arms up for a split second.

I did it. I never want to do it again… but I did it.  Kind of like today’s statics test…

It’s Like You’ve Gone Away…

“I never see you anymore
Come out the door
It’s like you’ve gone away.
We used to be best buddies
And now we’re not
I wish you would tell me why…”

Today I headed away from my UNCA home and back towards my family home for the weekend.

I feel this travel between school and home is the hardest on my youngest siblings… they don’t seem to quite understand why I leave so often.

Earlier today, Sparrow (my Frozen obsessed little sister) told me that I was Elsa and that I needed to let her in.

She kept referencing the song, “Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?”

I’ve been told that she will knock on my door when I’m away and start asking in a singing tone if I “wanna build a snowman”.

Little sis, I would love to.

Grey Wall.

I love this picture of Isaac.

It’s from an orchestra trip to a museum in Alanta, GA about 5 months ago (I can’t remember the name at the moment)… photo cred goes to Brendan Joyce.

This photo just happened to catch my eye from the many facebook photos people were posting from that trip.

… Maybe because it is my brother… maybe because I can’t help but wonder what is on the wall.

Constellations?

Mountains?

A grey wall?!

Whoa… a grey wall!

Whatever it is… it somehow reminds me of how small we truly are.

If we zoom out, we are just a spec on Earth… an atom in the universe (if not smaller).

We are nothing.

Yet… we are everything.

We are the fireworks in another persons mind… or heart.

We are the interaction that can change a persons whole life… set it on a completely different track.

On a small scale, we are everything… each a piece of sand building a castle…

Step away and you hardly notice the individuals but the castle as a whole.

I’m sure if you get close to the wall, there is something written on it… some meaning to it…

But from further away… it really just looks like a fancy multi-grey wall.

Crazy Saturday Night

Just another crazy Saturday night…

My glass is full of hot chocolate and my computer is ready for some binge watching of 209 (C programming) lectures.

Awwww yeah. I know how to party…

Broken Cookies

I love college… I love UNCA… I love the distance education program with NCSU…

I’m very happy that I get the chance to be here…

But this has been one long… so very long rainy week.

Very grey, squishy days.

An exhausting, busy schedule.

Late nights… frantically trying to complete homework… college.

I saw the above image the other day and decided it was too funny to be true.

Granted, I don’t usually give up and watch TV while crying in bed… but instead do a little something like this…

Last night, my friend and I were studying for a Linear Algebra quiz. It was only a few chapters… so we opened the book hopeful… ready to start working out homework problems. We both stare at the first one… completely and utterly lost. We go to the answer book… still completely confused and lost. Then we ask a math tutor and they become confused.

Skip to the next problem…. same thing.

Skip four problems ahead… same.

Skip to the next chapter… “OH! I know this!!”… look in the answer book… it looks no where close to what we were doing. Look in the notes… we were doing something completely different.

Flip through the next two chapters looking for something we could at least start… at this point it is 7:30pm and we are both completely zoning out.

“You wanna do statics instead? I could really go for some statics.”

That is how bad it got… we were excited to do statics homework… and that is the story of how we completely gave up and settled with maybe getting a 4/12 on the quiz today… knowing that our professor is a pretty hard grader.

And no… the quiz did not go well. When there is only two questions and all you can write down for one of them is “I have no idea what to do…” it is not going to go well.

But I think I answered the second one correctly!!

Maybe a 6/12?!

Anyways… on with the story… the Linear Algebra thing was my fault… should have studied a bit harder. Oops…

So… after that, I had to go to statics and then fill out a circuits lab report due during my 2pm lab time…

I later decided that I would stop by Argo (the coffee/tea shop on campus) and have a quick break with some chai tea and an oatmeal raisin cookie.

They were getting ready to close in 15 minutes, so I was happy to find that they still had some cookies left.

There was a specific broken one in the back that was just calling my name (maybe because it looked the biggest?)… so I asked for that one. The cashier went over to get the cookie for me and upon handing me the bag, it looked like he had not only given me the giant broken cookie but also broken an extra piece off and added it in.

I know he was just trying to get rid of them (I don’t think a lot of people buy the oatmeal raisin ones)… but it’s funny how something like that can brighten up your day.

An extra piece of a cookie, your favorite song, a strangers smile… it makes a difference.

Happy Fall Break to UNCA!

Quiet Nights

I work in the Game Room at UNCA… where I sit at a desk and am in charge of equipment checkout.

Difficult job, right?

Sometimes… when you have to try to get people to follow the rules.

Tonight it is quiet (so far…. I work until midnight).

I get to just sit at the desk, listen to music, and work on homework.

It’s nice after a long day… one that makes you feel like it should be Friday tomorrow.

It’s not Friday tomorrow… Nope.

I haven’t been able to post on Mondays… you would think that having a weekend before it would give me even more time… but I have found that to be my statics and circuits time.

I have found my statics and circuits homework to take about an average of 12 hours to complete (12 hours each)… and with statics due Monday and circuits due Wednesday, I haven’t found much time to post.

It’s crazy how the days have been feeling like weeks and the weeks like a day.

Time is a weird thing.

I spoke too soon… I now have a very crowded Game Room.