I wanna swear

I just finished the two hour test for my pilot plant class that was entirely on Excell. As I was leaving after having emailed it to the TA I realized that I copied the page wrong so it didn't change the cells that I wanted. The explination of the mistake would take longer than I want, but the agnoy of knowing what you did wrong before it has even been looked at is really VERY frustrating.

Compliments

Unlike getting compliments from complete strangers. It is really nice when someone that you work with everyday gives you a compliment, especially when you feel like you might throw up from smelling too much diethyl ether. It's always good to get a lift when you need it.

Mmmm.......Cookies (And other news)

Well the extra long weekend was AMAZING! I had tons of fun and I don't care how stressed I get this week it will still have been worth it to go home. Now I only have two more weeks of class and then finals and then I'm done for FOREVER! Highlights of this week include:

• On Monday my mother-in-law started baking LOADS of cookies for us to take home! She loves us tons. Plus, can anyone guess what kind of cookies she made? That's right, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle. The two best cookies ever.
• I made a really cute skirt on Saturday I think (it may have been Friday, I just packed in so much fun that I can't remember what we did each day. It's all a blur.) I wore it to church on Sunday. I love it.
• I got my hair cut this weekend. Now it is just past my shoulders (which may not seem short for some of you, but I did get a good 4-5" cut off). It feels so light and breezy! Plus this way I can just pull it back if we go camping or anything this summer.
• Sadly I had to throw away our Ranunculus. When we got home they were CRAWLING with aphids. I literally couldn't see any plant left, just aphids. I was just going to shake them off but the poor little plants wouldn't have made it. Plus, I don't want the aphids to get to my herbs, which are coming along nicely.
• Going to Logan seems more and more concrete every day, which I love. On Sunday my dad called one of his friends that lives in Logan and works for a food company down there. He said he'd ask around to see if anyone was hiring so I might actually get a good job in the food industry, which I had previously given up on. YEAH!

Well, I have to go to class now so that has to be it. I hope everyone has a great day today!

Snickers, Peanut Butter Cups, Skittles

Today in Relief Society the lesson was about being more Christ-like. The teacher gave a wonderful lesson about how we need to be Christ-like and think of others more. I loved the lesson. At the end she gave out little baggies of candy with a little saying on it,

"Wouldn't it be nice if we looked at people and candy the same and liked them all? And didn't just pick out the prettyor smart people or red and blue candy."

To which I thought, "But I don't like all candies. In fact I hate ones with nuts." When I told my husband the quote he said the same thing. Maybe we need to work on liking all candies.

P.S. I love the candies she gave out in the bag. They're candy coated chocolate chips and they taste like sixlets.

Be Nice

Well I've been thinking about this for a couple of days now so, although it's not really all that exciting, I thought I'd take the time to write it down.

Lately it seems like the two words I've been saying the most are, "be nice." Perhaps this is because the group of kids I'm around all day at school. They're not very nice to each other. Some of this is joking, but some of it is just plain mean. Also the harshness I've been seeing people write to each other on their blogs seems to be creaping into my view. I just wish people would take a step back once in a while and realize the impact of their words and their attitudes on others. I know that sometimes people are joking around and being sarcastic, but that negativity slowly creeps into their interactions, even when they're not joking. It's a disease. I'm working really hard right now to be nice to everyone, but it does seem so hard when the people I interact daily seem to be so negative. Don't get me wrong here, the people aren't bad. I actually really like and enjoy the group of people I've been pleased to associate with. I also enjoy the opportunity I get to read other people's opinions on their blogs. It's just hard to take the bad with the good sometimes. So anyway, my thought for the day today is just to be nice.

Memorial Day

On Thrusday we're leaving Corvallis! Yeah! We're going to go home and have a four day weekend! (I like to refer to this as my spring break since I spent my spring break taking care of my wonderful nieces and studying Physics). Anyway, as I was sitting in class today my thought process went like this:

Chromatography is very important. ....I need to make sure I have everything done before I leave on Thrusday so I don't feel guilty about leaving....and size exclusion is very good if what you want to separate are different sized particles....maybe I should make a list of everything that must get done....Ion exchange is very good for use in separating out proteins....Ok, now for my list. I forgot about needing to get in my food processing lab data! I also have a lab due tomorrow that I haven't even started yet!........the batch type process for chromatography has been phased out and is no longer even used in industry. Ok, well if I just schedule out every hour of my week this week I think I may still be able to take the test and turn in both lab write ups and write my learning module before I leave......

Yes, I'm pretty sure that food analysis today was a waiste of my time. The reason for this is not merely because I didn't listen (which as you can see I was listening at least half the time), but also because we went over chromatography very in depth last term. Sometimes I think my professors don't talk to each other. On the plus side I'm excited out of my mind to be having a vacation! I can't wait for Thursday to come!

Chocolate Chip

Well, thanks to all those who voted in my King of all cookies survey. You all confirmed my husband's stance that the chocolate chip cookie (all sorts of variations) are the archtypal cookie and thus The King of all Cookies.

Spring

Well it's been record breaking hot here in Oregon this week. That's a good thing for me just in case anyone was thinking I'm complaining. (Record breaking was 94 degrees on monday) Anyway I was just thinking how Spring is amazing! I love it, even though it gives me allergies that make me want to die. I have four weeks left to push through to graduation. I really REALLY want to just coast to the end, but I'm not quite to where I feel comfortable just coasting. I want to coast and still get marginally good grades. This is only the case since I've already been getting pretty good grades. I have a hard time stopping now. So we'll see. Probably in another week or so I'll go into coasting mode. Probably once it's June. In June I'll coast.

A mistake

Getting out of bed today was a mistake. I'm sick and my head is about to explode. That didn't start until half way through my first class. I felt so stressed and so physically exhausted in my food engineering class today I almost started to cry. The tears started to well up and it took everything I had not to look like a baby in front of the class. I still have one more class left at 2 pm and I am determined to go because we're going over one of the homework problems that I couldn't figure out. I should go, but I'm worried that what my teacher says wont make any sense like this morning when he was talking about tube in tube concurrent flow heat exchangers. I don't think I should have t0 figure out engineering when my brain is about to ooze out my nose. The only positive of today is that we got back our food analysis tests and I got the high score of 93%. I'm so sick though I can't really enjoy it. Uugh!

96%

Although I did not brag in class today or to any of the other students in my class I just want to announce that I got the highest grade on my food packaging midterm! I wanted to brag somewhere.

The King

My husband and I were having a debate about cookies the other day. I'm not going to say anymore about the debate other than it was about cookies because I don't want to sway any of your answers, but I thought I'd open up the forum to more opinions than ours. The question to be answered is:

If you were to say that one cookie is The King of All Cookies, what would it be?

I'm interested to hear your responses.

OSU in the Springtime

My favorite thing about spring here is not that we finally get to see the sun. It also isn't that the rhododendrons, which are twice my height seem to be covered with fountains of pink, red, and white flowers. It also isn't that people around here are happier. My favorite thing about spring here is that they open the windows in the music building. I'm not sure if that's because the cooling system isn't very good or just that they like the fresh air, but I love it. As I walk or ride my bicycle past the building wonderful music is pouring out of it. You can hear it all around and even into the quad in front of the library. It's like a little piece of culture as I go about my business. Sometimes it's a jazz band, other times it's a choir, today it was some sort of xylophone music. I love everything I hear.

A plan? What plan?

I thought we had a plan for next year, but as it turns out that's just what my husband told me to get me to stop worrying about it or something like that. I found out a couple days ago that my father-in-law's PA called Loma Linda again, (which is what I wanted him to do in the first place, but my husband wasn't sure he wanted that) and when he called the guy there chuckled and said he was "working on it." I'm not sure what that means, but what is really important in this story is that hearing that seemed to perk up my husband. Like he would really want to go to LL if he were accepted. So net result, we have no plan. We wont have a plan until at the very soonest the end of the month. Oh well, at least I have tons of stuff to do until then!

Getting the Grade

Well I spent 11 hours on Saturday writing the "paper" for my Women's Study class. Actually it's writing on a web site. Well actually it's just adding the paper in a multiple page format onto my blog for the class. The part that took me the 11 hours on Saturday was just the writing though. Oh the agony! It made me want to bang my head against the wall, even though I really enjoyed the topic before writing about it. When it's done maybe I'll link to it for anyone to read, although I'm not sure how many of you are interested in knowing about vacuum impregnation of fruits and vegetables with nutrients, or edible food packaging, or women in China. (Yes all three are in the paper.) At any rate I spent so much time on Saturday writing the thing! I was really upset because it was moderately good weather and my husband got to go climbing and it was mom's weekend this weekend so there were mom's all over campus and mine wasn't there. So I spent some of that 11 hours pouting. Today I got on blackboard and found out that the prof used the stuff I have submitted so far as an example for the class! That's kind of exciting!

On the plus side I got my pilot plant midterm back today. I got a 90.5% on it! Then I was looking at my answer and how I got marked off on something and that I thought it wasn't fair. The question said, "Interpret your answer if you....." so I went up and asked the professor what he meant by interpret and he told me to find the final spore count of the can after the process. I did that. Then I was marked down for not writing that "the process would not be sufficient for legal standards." I did, however, write that the final spore count would be 2.2x10^-9 (which doesn't meet legal standards.) Since the prof had told me during the test only to find the final count I felt I shouldn't have gotten points taken off. He agreed and now my score is: 92%. Ok so that wasn't that big a deal, but I just like to be right. OK? Long story short, when I graduate in 7 weeks you can all trust me to process your canned food and not kill you. I know what I'm talking about.

I made it

Well, this week I had three midterms, two lab write-ups and one research paper to do. What a week! It's Saturday and I'm in the library writing my research paper. I'm a little behind, but as its for my online course and it's due date is "during week 5" I consider Saturday to be part of week five and I'm calling it good. My husband is out climbing and I'm pouting because I have to be inside writing a stupid paper. Well the paper isn't stupid, just the fact that I have to write it is stupid. I HATE writing. Oh well.

Yesterday we went looking at cars and it made me sort of upset. We have $8,000 from the insurance when the Jeep was totalled. I figured this is a lot of money and we wont have any problem finding a car. Here's what we want (and by we I mostly just mean Dan):

• Four doors (that one's my preference)
• Hatch-back or wagon style (Dan's preference)
• Toyota matrix or something vibe (but yesterday we looked at a VW wagon that was really pretty)

Other than that we're not that picky. Dan doesn't want automatic and I don't care either way on that one. I just want to look at it and think that I'm driving a pretty car. I gravitate towards the blue ones. There was this one yesterday that was a steele blue color and it was magnificent. Anyway whenever we go to look at cars enevitably a salesman comes out to talk and when he finds out the money we're planning on spending its almost like they want to walk away because they know their commission will be lousy. Kind of depressing. I know that Dan's totally given up on buying one at a dealership because we don't have enough money. Oh well.

Yesterday we went to a little party that Dan's workmates/friends were throwing. As we would be eating their food I thought we should bring something. I whipped up a little cherry pie (I just used the cherry filling you buy at the store for the middle). When I brought it over everyone gushed over it and said how it's been so long since they've had a pie from scratch and how amazing it was. I just said thanks instead of giving up the secret that the only thing I did was make the crust. At least they liked it!

Something wonderful

Yesterday as I woke up the first thing that went through my head was, "Dum, du, dum, dum duuuuuuumm. This is the day I have two of the hardest midterms I've had since coming to OSU. All in one day. This can't be good." But then I went and took a shower. When I got out I had this thought go through my head, "Something wonderful is going to happen to me today." I just couldn't shake that feeling. Not even after handing in my first test feeling a little down trodden with a sore finger from writing as fast and furious as I could. I still felt something wonderful was going to happen. And you know what, it did! Was it that I did awesome on my two tests because I'm a genious? Well, no. I mean I probably did decent and I'll be satisfied with my grades, but awesome? I think not.

I got home after working for 2.5 hours on my second test of the day absolutely exhausted! I just crashed on the sofa. When my husband came home (keep in mind that he had a midterm that morning) he said, "If you'll make out a list I'll go grocery shopping for us." My heart was practically singing! Then he topped that off by saying, "I'll pick up a $3 pizza from the grocery store too so you don't have to cook." Right then and there I knew he loved me. What made the whole evening wonderful though was that he did all the laundry last night! He stayed up to do it while I went to bed! Now that my friends, is romance! He is my something wonderful.

On My Way

I just got my grade back from independent study for my physics class! I got a B! YEAH! I'm well on my way to graduation!

The Roses are Red and Other News

Let's start with the other news:
This weekend my husband recieved a letter from Loma Linda saying that he's been put on the unranked waitlist and we may or may not get an acceptance anytime between now and, get this, AUGUST 3rd. Surprisingly I took this news much worse than Daniel. I flipped my lid. This is merely because I've been holding off on my plans until we figure out what's happening with him. After calming down and discussing it at length for two full days and also a little prayer we came up with our plan of action. (We have a plan!) We're definitely going to plan on going to Logan in July. Dan wanted to take his name off the waitlist today, but his parents prudently pointed out that there's no reason to burn the bridge right now. The official deadline for applicants to declare where they're going is May 15th and the most movement off of the waitlist onto the acceptance list will be within that week so we'll wait to the end of that week and then Dan will strike the match and we wont look back. Here's the reasoning behind the plan:

• Dan can get research experience this year which will make him a much stronger applicant than last year.
• After going through the process once he sees where he may have not presented himself the strongest and can correct that next year.
• We'll have time to take off and just work and be together.
• In my mind, medical school is a big comittment. I didn't want my husband making that comittment just because it's the next step in his plan. He should be excited and anticipating doing this. He's not excited about Loma Linda. He didn't want his dad's PA to call to see if he can influence the comittee any. That seemed weird to me because I know that if it were for UW he would TOTALLY want him to do that.
• In 30 years from now taking one year off wont be that detrimental to us. In fact we may look back on this year as one of the best things for us.

That's just a few of the reasons and they're not explained very well, but it's what I could get out right now. I can't tell you how excited I am to have a plan!

In other, other news:
I was in class (full of seniors majoring in Food Science) when the topic of discussion was on Ash content in food. Keep in mind that we had already discussed the processing of ashing the previous lecture. The process goes like this. Burn the food product so that no organic matter is left in it. Then determine the difference in weight from beginning to end and that's your ash component. (Sorry for the explination, but it's important to the story.) The conversation this particular day went a little like this:

Prof: "We are always talking about ash this and ash that, but what is Ash? Does anyone know?"
Girl #1: "Carbon."
Prof: "No. Carbon is burned out as part of all the organic matter."
Girl #2: "Carbohydrates."

To which everyone laughed. These girls are SENIORS in food science and they don't know that organic matter by definition is composed of carbon. Also they don't know that CARBohydrates are made up of carbon! I couldn't believe it!

I have to go to class now so I guess I'm not going to post on the flowers on campus.