Post-Scavenger Hunt

A few weeks ago, some friends and I got together and had a massive scavenger hunt. When I say massive, I mean massive. Like covering 8000 square miles and taking 12+ hours massive. We had a grand total of nine people/three teams competing, and all three teams ended up driving over 400 miles each between Eugene, the coast, and around Portland.

Challenges included stops at Voodoo Doughnut in Eugene and Portland, the world's smallest park, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, sunset at Mary's Peak, and taping a package of muffins to a random street sign. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure...

Sunset at Mary's Peak

The world's smallest park

Muffins!

Energy

It's clearly been a while... My apologies for that, everyone. I could give you a million excuses, but I'm not going to. I could also give you a lengthy update on my life, but the details even bore me. Instead, here's the short version:

• Spring term sucked. I hated my classes, I passed all my classes, and I realized I want to go back to MIT.
• I'm taking summer classes - physics and vector calculus. More along the lines of what I'd take at MIT, and I'm so much happier.
• I have a job at a local pizza place washing dishes some nights and serving pizzas/cleaning up after people on other nights. I work weekends, which is unfortunate, but the people are awesome and the pizza's delicious.
• I'm going to be on the newscrew for the National FFA Convention in October! Needless to say, I'm beyond excited.

There really haven't been any other major things going on, unless I'm forgetting something. Anyway. Expect more regular posts here! Well, hopefully. I'm toying with the idea of switching to a tumblr site that's a little less text-heavy and energy-intensive (the thought of sitting down and writing out a blog is a little boring these days), and continuing writing about focused topics on another site. I'll keep you all posted!

Yes, I'm Still Alive

So, it's been pointed out to me twice this weekend in Facebook wall posts that I haven't posted in a while.

Sorry about that.

There have a been a number of contributing factors: lack of topics, lack of time, and lack of energy. All lousy excuses, I know. So here's what's been going on over the past few months for me...

Summer
Summer was... well... awesome. I spent it with awesome people doing awesome things, which is precisely how summer should be spent. Highlights: barbeques galore, an eight mile hike, buying a ukulele, visiting fairs and rodeos, and just having fun.

MIT
I realize that this is a given. But I don't know if it's possible to convey in print just how severely MIT has been kicking my ass this term. Like, it's seriously on a level that I didn't know was possible. I do actually like one of my classes, though. My ecology class (1.018 for you MIT-ers) is amazing! The CI-M part (a term paper) can be a little obnoxious at times, but the subject material is incredibly interesting, and something I could spend hours happily working on. Physics and chemistry... well... they're a different story. Things outside of classes are keeping me busy as well. Pi Phi and the radio station take up some time, which is fine. But by the time I manage to make a dent in the amount of work I have, the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is blog. Typically I just want to sleep.

I'm actually going to be incredibly lazy right now and just post some pictures from the past few months (because, well, I want to sleeeeeeep). These are all from MIT, and the few moments I've not been studying. Enjoy!

The Cambridge side of the Charles River.
Boston's John Hancock Tower.
Boston Public Library's courtyard.
There's some construction going on in the Infinite Corridor, and these signs appeared. Naturally, MIT students had to add their commentary.
Obama paid a little visit to campus back in October. This was the car he was in (my photography skills failed me for a moment). I'll actually be posting more about this...
Girl Talk played at the Boston House of Blues earlier this month. It was one of the most epic dance-y shows I've ever been to. If you have no idea who Girl Talk is... well... you need to fix that. Go. Now. I won't be offended.
People always complain that MIT has an ugly campus. I actually have to disagree with them.
As much as I complain about being in New England, I must say there are times when I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. These moments are typically on gorgeous fall days...

So. A post! I promise you that there will never again be a four-month unannounced hiatus. And thanks Ms. Behrle and Nathan for hinting (though not so subtly) that I needed to update this.

The Same Old Excuses

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the planet, I promise. I just need to actually sit down and blog...

Coming soon:

• My adventures in San Francisco with my friend Natalie
• Music goodness
• Tales of a treasure hunt in which technology was no help (a.k.a. a recent geocaching/hiking trip)
• A cell phone review for the ages
• The latest addition to my family (hint: it has a tail)
  
• Why I'm the worst sister in the world (and an exploration of molasses consumption)
• Just how behind I am in Infinite Jest
  

... and probably a lot more!

This summer, despite things for Berkeley falling through, has been one big adventure with my friends and family. As such, there's been little time to sit down and chronicle it for you all. Sorry about that! I will definitely be making a bit more time to blog, so stay tuned!

No One Ever Said I Lacked Ambition

Summer plans recently fell through (I was supposed to take a physics class at UC Berkeley, but things just didn't work out), so I found myself with about eleven weeks of nothingness.

Well, they're no longer weeks of nothingness. I plan on filling them with working for my dad's aircraft parts business, seeing friends, and reading. Lots and lots of reading. Rather than listing all the books I aim to plow through in the coming months, I'll just show them to you.

The two upright books on the right are the only two I've made it through so far. Clearly, I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Many of the books I'm part way through (one's a book I started for my high school senior English class and I never finished it), and there are only two that I haven't started yet (Naked Lunch and The Sound and the Fury). The book I'll be concentrating on most, however, is that behemoth on the bottom: Infinite Jest.

I've been interested in reading Infinite Jest for quite a while now, but for one reason or another I just haven't picked it up. And then I heard about Infinite Summer. Essentially, everyone participating in Infinite Summer is reading David Foster Wallace's massive tome from June 21st to September 22nd. It's really informal, you can read as fast as you want, and essentially there are no rules. Online there are forums and blogs from readers. Naturally, I can't pass this up, and it's motivation to actually sit down and read Infinite Jest. If this is something that's been on your to do list as well, I highly recommend participating - it's not too late!

3 weeks?! Wait. How did that happen?!?!

Yep. I have three weeks left until I head off to MIT.

It's kind of freaking me out, not gonna lie. At the beginning of the summer I couldn't wait and it felt like I had forever before I had to leave. And now I'm looking at a packed three weeks, full of packing, eating at all my favorite restaurants one last time, packing, late-night Shari's runs with friends (because french toast and scrambled eggs taste AMAZING at 2 AM), hiking, trips to Powell's, and more packing!

I'm really happy that I was able to go back to camp for a couple of weeks, though. Everyone was amazing, and the last week I was a Unit Leader and had perfect campers. Perfect! It was kind of unbelievable. And I was able to hike up to the Falls on the last day (Eleven summers there, and I'd never seen them. Pathetic.) and I got to spend time with three of my best friends and overall I am super-happy that I went because I feel just a little bit more sane and ready for life.

Things are really started to become a lot more real. Housing results came out while I was at camp, and I finally checked them on Friday. I'm in Simmons! On the 10th floor... Sad sauce. [Oh goodness. Definitely picked that one up from Meghann...] But, the Blogger application also came out! Which is very exciting, except I really don't know how that's going to go. Lolcats or YouTube art: two things I really don't know much about. And, my laptop is still being a brat and refuses to connect to the internet. Yea! Go me!

My friend Damian had a going-away party yesterday (he left for Basic for the Marines today) and it was really strange. All my friends are moving out of their parents' houses and going off to school or getting jobs and I don't know if I'm fully comprehending the fact that I'm not going to see some of these people again, and we're all going separate ways. There are people I've gone to school with for 13 years, and now I'm not going to see them on a daily basis for nine months every year. In some respects, that's a good thing, but it's also really bad. It's just a weird transistion period and I really don't know how to react. Bleh.