replaced by every day

So since the beginning of the summer I've been experimenting with keeping two journals: this one for more thoughtful, eloquent posts, and a more banal livejournal (where I write about my life and other random things). Obviously, the "thoughful, eloquent posts" haven't been coming as of late. Instead, I've been posting much more frequently on the lj, so I wanted to give, um, whatever "readers" I have here a heads up in case you wanted to, like, catch up on what's been happening in my life.

I haven't decided what I want to do, yet -- I like the idea of having this weblog as sort of a writing exercise and the lj as more of a journal, but at the same time, what good does this one do if I never update it? So, I don't know; maybe I'll end up merging the two. We'll see. What do you all think?

Posted by Jennifer at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, I have to set up this story first: so, remember the internship with WSB-TV that I applied and interviewed for earlier this summer? Well, at the end of July or so, I got a call from Cheryl White (the coordinator of the program and the woman who interviewed me) saying that they had decided to give the fall internship positions to students who would be graduating this semester, but would I be still interested in interning in the spring? and so I was like, yes of course, and she said great, I'll get back to you in November then with more info, and I was like, okay, that's that.

But tonight I got a call around 9:30 (I was sitting on a bench outside of Marble Slab, with some Technique people), and when I picked up, it was Cheryl White again -- and it turns out that one of the fall interns had changed his mind and said he couldn't do it, so now there was an opening, and would I be interested in taking it? which totally caught me off-guard, but I was very composed about it, and I asked if I could call her back tomorrow with a more definite answer, since I needed to check with advisors and rearrange my schedule and all that.

But my mind is all whirling now. Of course I'm going to take the internship, because 1) it won't keep me from graduating on time, 2) I think it will really be a cool and unique experience, and 3) I need to find out whether journalism might be something I want to do, seriously, as a career. So, to accommodate the internship, I'm thinking that I'll drop my senior design class and thermodynamics. So I would have class from 8-11 MWF, I would have to work a minimum of 25 hours/week for WSB, and I'd have the Technique on top of that.

But I'm having to totally readjust my mindset about this semester. After going to senior design today (and getting excited about the prospect of working in a group with friends on a relatively cool DSP-related project) and just going through, like, the entire past week psyching up myself to think that yes, this will be a good semester, with some interesting ECE classes and a really great schedule that will help me stay on top of my responsibilities at the paper... now, with this internship, everything's being thrown into uncertainty again. I'm wondering whether I'll be able to handle 9 hours of class a week (plus variable lab times), along with interning, and the paper. If worse comes to worst, I'll drop 4175 (which is a 4-hour class, with a lecture plus lab). But I really want this to work, so... I hope I can do it.

So this is what I need to do tomorrow:

-wake up super-early, go to the Technique office and send out story ideas/assignments
-go to class from 8-11
-probably skip thermo in order to go by the STAC advisor's office and make sure I can still receive credit for the internship
-figure out how the credit will work in terms of registration, and drop classes/make changes to my schedule as needed
-call Cheryl White back
-email my senior design professor (to be considerate), and tell him I'm not taking the class anymore, since he's working out how to assign groups
-finish contacting people for quotes and write up a news story I'm doing for this week

maybe not quite in that order. Things will depend on other things. But I really hope all of that happens, at some point.

In other news, tonight was our first Technique staff meeting of the semester. We were providing burgers and hot dogs for the food, so I volunteered to do the cooking. Since the grill was outside the office, and the drinks and condiments and everything else were inside, cooking was also my excuse to not have to be social by talking to all the new people. Usually I'm really good about making newcomers feel welcome at the Technique, but today, for some reason, I felt like I kept saying the wrong things. Oh well. All the burgers got eaten and no one died of food poisoning (yet...), so I think I did all right in the food area, at least. Afterward the hardcore Technique kids (whatever that means) went out for ice cream, so that was fun, too.

Posted by Jennifer at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Whee! The Olympics are so much fun to watch!

Hee, so here's an excerpt from a weblog post I'd written four years ago:

9.18.00

... I've found a role model. Ian Thorpe, a 17-year-old swimmer from Australia, affectionately dubbed the "Thorpedo." He has cartoonish features... big eyes, a big nose, tawny blonde hair, and size 17 feet. He's Australia's great promise. The other night, he won the gold, as expected, and Australia celebrated. There were inspiring stories about him, about how he's friends with a boy who's fighting cancer and how he takes time off from his training to go visit him, and how he won $15,000 for a race and donated it to charity, and how he's the most down-to-earth, unaffected person. There was an interview with him, and he seemed so kind and genuine. I was glad when he won the gold. I thought no one deserved it more.

Tonight Ian Thorpe raced again... and he didn't win. He won silver, beat by a swimmer from the Netherlands. I was disappointed when the guy from the Netherlands touched the wall first. But then the cameras zoomed in on Ian's face, looking up at the scoreboard, and there was hardly a trace of disappointment in his face. And then--he swum over to the guy from the Netherlands' lane, tapped him on the shoulder, congratulated him, and hugged him. I was struck by his sense of sportsmanship; it's something you don't see very often. And when I saw that, I no longer felt disappointed: after all, why should I, if Ian Thorpe himself could handle it so well? It reminds me of Michelle Kwan at the 1998 Winter Olympics, when Tara Lipinski won. Such grace. It makes me happy to see that.

So I have found myself a new Olympics hero. Ian Thorpe. Go, Ian. :)

Posted by Jennifer at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Okay, after three phases of registration and a bunch of uncertainty over what I was going to be doing this semester (interning? classes? what?), I think I am close to finalizing my fall schedule:

MWF:
8-9 a.m. - ECE4781 (Biomedical Instrumentation)
9-10 a.m. - ECE4175 (Embedded Microcontroller Design)
10-11 a.m. - ECE3025 (Electromagnetics)
3-4 p.m. - ME3720 (Thermodynamics)

TTh:
3-4:30 p.m. - ECE4006 (Senior Design Project [with a DSP focus?])

I'm also in the process of trying get a permit for a different thermo class (it's a different course number, ME3322, that equally satisfies my thermo requirement but that gives me a major restriction when I try to register for it online), so if that goes through, then I'll have thermo from 11-12 on MWF. So I'd have a 4-hour block of class MWF from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., which is a little daunting -- but I think I'd rather have that than a random class in the afternoon. At least this way I can get my classes over with early in the day.

So that adds up to 16 hours, which I think will be just manageable enough when combined with my responsibilities with the Technique. And I'm actually, for once, somewhat excited about my schedule: I've heard good things about both of the ECE electives I'm taking, and a couple of my good friends are in senior design with me, so hopefully I'll have a good group for that class. Also, since I'm not doing housing, I think I'll have a lot more free time too. So I'm excited about that, too.

And I'm moving back onto campus in two days! Ahhh! The back-to-school rush should technically already have begun, but here I am, still in my pajamas. Oh well.

Posted by Jennifer at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm in the process of cleaning/organizing my room, which is something I do every time I move out of my dorm/apartment back home. And for the first time I feel like I have so much stuff -- I feel so burdened by the amount of things I have that I've been much less sentimental than I usually am about throwing things away. I found a drawer of old programs from ASO/Ferst Center concerts, school plays, and other things; if they weren't memorable shows, they were tossed into the recycling bin. I found all my papers from high school chemistry and calculus under my bed; they were also recycled without a second thought. And as I was looking through some loose photo packets that hadn't been put into albums, I found a set of photos from the beginning of senior year that (I think) my boyfriend at the time had taken; pictures of the two of us at his dorm room making faces at the camera, pictures of his architecture projects, of his brother on the plane, of random scenery. I felt a pang of something indescribable as I flipped through them; but when I was done, I put them back into their paper sleeve, walked over to my desk, and dropped them into the trash.

Posted by Jennifer at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night the orchestra dinner group went to see I, Robot at Regal 24. They were selling movie posters as part of some fundraising thing out in the theater lobby, so I ended up getting a poster from School of Rock since the big posters were only $3 (!).

After I came home I thought of like, ten other movies that I should have checked to see if they were selling, because School of Rock is hardly like one of my favorite movie or anything (I looked for a High Fidelity poster -- which is one of my favorite movies -- but they didn't have it, and the next thing that popped into my head was School of Rock since Jack Black is in both movies and they both have to do with classic rock). But whatever, I definitely like the poster (and the movie) enough to hang it up in my room this year, and besides, maybe it'll balance out the geekiness of my Lord of the Rings poster (um, posters). I think the importance of making sure your wall decorations reflect who you are as a person is way overrated, anyway. It's kind of the same philosophy as the movie we saw: I really liked I, Robot -- it was just a good, fun movie with a decent plot, moderately thought-provoking parts, cool CGI and of course, the badass-ness of Will Smith. I suppose Will Smith plays pretty much the same character is all of his movies, but like I said to Ethan as we were looking at the posters (me: "Oh, About a Boy! That was a great movie!" him: "Haha, I liked it too, but I can't stand Hugh Grant." "Why?!" "He plays the same character in every single one of his movies!" "Aw, who cares! That's what makes him so good"), sometimes you should just take things at face value.

Posted by Jennifer at 01:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finished my section and left the Technique office at exactly 5:42 a.m. this morning. As I drove north on 85 and 400, I was surprised at the less-than-dead traffic -- people waking up to go to their jobs, I suppose, instead of coming home from theirs -- but I have to admit that it was probably good for my morale and my sleepiness that there were other cars to watch for on the road. There were lots of big trucks, too, carrying their cargo to who knows where, and since I was driving 10 mph slower than everyone else (unintentionally, since my senses were dulled by a lack of sleep), I watched them zoom by me. I kept envisioning something sudden happening where I wouldn't react fast enough -- maybe one of those trucks would change lanes without seeing me, or I would swerve to avoid something on the road -- and my car would go skidding out of control, crashing into the median.

So it was a small relief when, around 6 a.m., I finally got off at my exit on 400. As I drove the remaining 15 minutes through Alpharetta to my house, I watched the eastern sky turn from black to midnight blue; when I finally pulled into my driveway, the entire sky had diffused into a deep cerulean. As I climbed my front steps, I thought about just staying awake to watch the sun rise, and I probably would have, too, if I hadn't scheduled a dentist's appointment in less than three hours.

Maybe some other time, though.

Posted by Jennifer at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)