And now, an update of Sam's escapades in the kitchen: he cooked a spatula.

I had stayed late to work in the library and lab on some projects, so I hadn't come home until evening. I open the door and find Sam in the kitchen frantically trying to clean a pan that was full of boiling water."Sam, what are doing?"

"I cooked a spatula."

Apparently, he had been making some chicken, when it was done he cut it up and set it in the fridge and went back to his homework. A few minutes later, he says, he smells something burning. Upon entering the kitchen he finds the handle of the spatula on the floor and the main piece bubbling in the pan. He had left the stove on and the spatula in the pan. The pan had melted through the handle, and completely destroyed the part in the pan. I liked that spatula. But at least it was his spatula, or he might have found himself in some serious trouble.

Yesterday I had my first oral quiz in Chinese, and I was super nervous. This time, we had to make up the conversation on the fly with no scripting or knowledge of which prompt we would get, and then we would be randomly partnered for this conversation. I knew the grammar, I knew the vocab, but conversational Chinese is probably my worst subject. So when get up to the front to act out our skit, I'm thinking I'm just gonna stutter through it, forget half the conversation we rehearsed for two minutes, and then sit down and listen to everyone else raise the bar too damn high.

So imagine my surprise when as I'm sitting down the teacher compliments my partner and I on our naturalness. We were the most convincing, and non-awkward conversation to perform the prompt. And as everyone else finished, I noticed they all just sort of stood there and said the bare amount they could get points for. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty damn smug. But now I have to study extra hard because the teacher will be expecting that from me. Oh well.

And finally, I received an email from the professor who was in charge of hiring docents for the space building. Apparently they had a different budget from what they had been expecting, and so they were taking longer than expected to sort things out. Which means I might have a shot at still getting the position. I know that my hours have changed since I applied because I accepted the TA position, but I think I can do both. I don't even have to TA every class. I'm only expected to be there half the time, so I can definitely fit my schedule around it. Cross your fingers even tighter, because I need to save up for my summer camp in China, and getting a job could definitely help in that area.

That concludes this blog post, as nothing else of import has happened in the past few days, but I'm hoping to hear back from the professor sometime this week as to whether I'm hired or not. And you will be the first to hear the news, good or bad. Farewell, readers. Until next time.

Welp, as of now I have been to every single class I will be in for this semester, and boy is it gonna be a long one. My intro programming class is basically just teaching me how to program in a program I've already been using for a year. I thought it was going to be the more interesting and intense aspects of the program.

I was wrong.

Sadly, it's one of those pesky required classes, and so I can't exactly just skip it. [Insert heavy sigh] The good news is that it's only half the semester, so after fall break no more silly programming class for me, and one less final at the end of the year. But in general, most of my classes are pretty relaxed. For one thing, I can actually understand my calculus professor, and he patiently explains everything you need to know. My last professor just stood at the front of the class and would ramble about math that might or might not have been related to the topic at hand. He was obviously brilliant at math, but he was the worst teacher I have ever come across.

Chinese 201 is going to be the death of me though. The teacher walked in on the first day, I had previewed the vocab, hadn't gotten lost,  I was feeling good. She walks to the front, writes her name, turns to face us with a smile on her face. What a liar. She says, still smiling, "My english is not good, and you're here to learn Chinese, so no more english." And then she exploded in Chinese. I was not prepared. And being a native speaker, she's naturally a very fast speaker. Chinese is a fast language. Chinese people seem to always be in a hurry, and everything is about speed. You can definitely hear it in her lectures.

I've slowly begun to grasp the concept of listening and responding in Chinese, but she still talks fast. I feel like even if I was fluent, it would be very hard to keep up with just how fast she talks. I enjoy it, it's certainly a challenge, and oddly enough it is my hardest course out of an entire semester of engineering classes. Meredith came back from her summer program talking in complete sentences, and not a whole lot of pauses, so at least I have a live-in tutor for when I need help studying.

I also TA for two separate classes, both intro courses of course, but they are two distinctly different professors. They are certainly interesting people, but I definitely favor one over the other. And I just remembered that I have to make a lesson plan for my upcoming days, where I am the only teacher and the actual professor doesn't have to be there. Fun times.

Not much else has happened in class, because I go to boring classes with boring people. However, the apartment is alive and well. I love grocery shopping, I love cooking, I almost wish I had just gone straight to the apartment freshman year, but oh well, what's done is done. The dorms weren't bad, my roommates were okay, I suppose. But there was almost an air of not being on campus. In all honesty, I feel more studious in my apartment than I ever did in the dorms.

And speaking of roommates, Operation: Keep the Fish is a go. Thanks to Gabi, we found a fish that is almost an exact copy of my roommate's fish that I babysat over the summer. She actually wants it back, but I've grown attached to the damn thing, and in all honesty it was mostly mine to begin with. She got it for a birthday present, and then promptly forgot to take care of it. I fed it pretty often, and cleaned it the most. I think she mostly liked the idea of having a fish, but didn't quite know how to care for it. And besides, this fish is actually pretty active and interacts with you. He chases my fingers around the bowl, and gets excited around feeding time. I took care of the damn thing for 4 months, I'm going to keep him alive for as long as I can.

I do feel bad sending another fish to what will inevitably be a sad death at the hands of my old roommate, but I can't do that to the little guy I've grown fond of. Meredith could never remember his "real" name that my roommate had given him, and so she always called him Thor. I like this name. So now my fish is named Thor. We have yet to do the exchange, but I'm almost 900% sure that my roommate will not notice that a different fish is in her bowl. The new one is a little smaller, but she hasn't seen him in four months, I doubt she'll have remembered him properly anyways. As long as he's red, it'll be fine.

I'll let you know how it goes once it finally goes down, but it should go without a hitch. And as for my life, that's about it, really. I could tell you every little remotely interesting thing that happened to me, but that would take way too much time for me to type and too much time for you to read. And so I'll leave this off here, and hope that once classes start picking up I'll have more to tell you about. Until next time, dear readers.

Classes start in two days. Wow. Where did the summer go?

So, I was supposed to hear back on Monday from the Space building guys. Didn't happen. I assumed they were taking a long time to work through everything. So I waited all day today. I waited for an email as I steadily convinced engineering freshman to at least look into studying Chinese. That was a blast. Get back to the apartment, still no email.

It is now about 9:30, and still I haven't heard a yes or a no. So I sent an email to the TA office, accepting their offer. You know, not as glamorous or well paying. but it's money, and face time with some of the better professors in my department, so it's not a total loss. Plus I automatically get time off for anything pertaining to my school work, like finals, so that's a perk. Oh well. A job is a job, just one more bullet point to my resume.

Tomorrow is training, and a little more studying where I can fit it. And then it's the deluge of classes. At least I don't start off the year with my 7:30am class. This year is going to go great. I can just feel it in my bones. I've made my mistakes, I've learned from them. Sometime in the near future I go to apply for my passport, and my visa, look into flights to China for the summer camp I'm looking into.

But yeah, nothing interesting over the weekend happened. I just went home, hung out, enjoyed the last free weekend I'll have for a long time. This week was pretty plain so far, aside from what I've mentioned so far. Hopefully, once classes get going, I'll have some interesting stories to come up with. Though I'm crossing my fingers that they won't be about my professors. I've had enough dealings with crazy, eccentric, unkempt, unorganized professors to last me the rest of my career. But I can feel, deep down all the way to my toes, that there will be at least one this semester.

Oh, and in closing I had to teach Sam how to make pasta tonight. He can make all kinds of other foods, but he didn't know how to make pasta. It just kind of boggled my mind. How can you go your whole life, making other food, and not know how to make something where literally all you have to do is boil water? I just watched in horror as he tried to pour the noodles before the water was boiling, and this was after I stopped him from using too small a pot to begin with. I just couldn't sit there for long, so I had to coach him through the process while I made my tea. This is going to be an interesting year to see what he comes up with.

Hooray, finally back from camp!

It was such a blast, I was definitely bummed I was only a counselor for one camp. I almost stayed for another, I offered to, but they had more than enough counselors at check-in, so I had to lumber onto the bus with everyone else. But these past few days were certainly full of adventure.

Sunday, went and saw Pacific Rim with Gabi and Tristan. Holy cow, afterwards I was just so pumped. We should have gone laser tagging, or started a bar fight or something. I need to go see at least ten more times. Then we went grocery shopping, yay, food. I bought some general groceries I'd need, plus a little splurge on strawberries (hey they were on sale), and they gathered the materials needed for me to make them lembas bread. You know, the thing from Lord of the Rings that the elves make, one small bite can fill the stomach of a grown man yadda yadda yadda? Tristan found a recipe, so we all gathered in my tiny little kitchen and made some.

It was really freaking good. I mean, obviously, since I made it, but hot damn I wanted to make a dozen more trays of the stuff. It was especially good with honey drizzled over it, and with strawberries. I knew they'd come in handy. But we chatted, pulled a Minnesota good-bye as they straggled in the doorway while we talked for another twenty minutes. Eventually, I was left all alone, and started to pack for my next adventure.

Monday morning dawned, and I still needed to pack stuff. I had figured I could go to bed early and pack in the morning since all I really needed was a towel and some pants. They give the counselors all kinds of clothing, it's great. So I hoisted up the sleeping bag, grabbed a lembas square from the kitchen, and I ran out to the bus stop.

I was a good half hour early, since I didn't know how long the bus takes to do it's tour. I thought I would have plenty of time to get to check-in. I'd be there to help and have time to change into the counselor shirt we were given and required to wear.

Nope.

The bus didn't show up for so longggg. I must have just missed the previous one or something. But that took a while. No problem, once I got on we were cruising right along. Then we get to the transportation hub. The smaller shuttles, the city buses, the light rail, all of them stop right here. It's crazy. But we loitered. I assumed we just had to wait a set amount of time for passengers. Everyone else had gotten off. No one had told me that the bus was in fact turning around, and I should have gotten off to join the bus that had been in front of us.

Well, great. But I still have time. So I ride it around, the bus driver said he stops at the cross street I need. I have to push a destination button so he knows who wants to stop there, which is pretty clever. So I press it and sit down, all alone on the bus and hoping I can make it. We're driving, and I can see the building, looming over all the small shops and boutiques that line the street. It's on our left, so I knew I'd have to cross the street. But he keeps driving. He goes around a corner. 'Must be a bus stop there,' I figure. But the building stays on our left, and then it slowly slides backwards away from us. He keeps driving.

I was so close.

Now I'm back almost all the way to my apartment after riding the bus loop. I get off and catch the next one going the right way, maybe this time it will go right. I get off at the transport hub to get on the proper bus, check. I tell the driver I want this station, and I press the button, check. I pull the cord to indicate I want to get off and the driver miraculously stops, check. Finally out on the streets again, I have to make my way to the building. I may have gotten off a little prematurely, but I'd rather walk an extra block than have to ride the bus around the loop again.

Check-in went great, the bus ride up was long but fantastic. 4 hours later, we're all piling off the bus and the coordinator catches me unloading the bags.

"Yellow 1, right?" I nod. "Yeah, I had to reassign you, you're now Yellow 3." She hands me a slip of paper with my camper's names. Ethan. Perry. Max. I see a pattern here that I wasn't expecting to see. I've been reassigned to a guy cabin, because 5 counselors didn't show up, and there is always more girl counselors than there are girl cabins. I inwardly groan, because who knew what they could be like. But I take the paper and go find my cabin assignment, standing with the three other counselors who will be lodging in that cabin.

We hike down to it, do our ice breaker introduction, they all seem pretty laid back, and then we're off to lunch. First activity after that was boat building. There had been a general consensus at lunch among my boys that they were all pretty lazy, and so they had agreed to not care what they won or lost. I shake my head, but lead them to the boats.

About ten minutes into building it, they suddenly become very invested as to whether or not their boat will in fact work. Then another ten minutes, and they're doing everything they can to make sure it works. This enthusiasm just continually built over the next few days, and by the time we got to the final activity on the last day, they were the most gung-ho team there.

We may not have won any points at Jeopardy (though the final Jeopardy question was the one piece of trivia I knew and had kept telling them. The second it was asked I think Ethan jumped four feet in the air and sprinted to turn in our answer), and our boat may have slightly sunk in the second round (we won our first round, yay!) but they were always ready to go. I was so proud of my cabin. I almost don't want another camp, with another cabin. I just want them to come back every year and hang out. I honestly think guy cabins are better than girl cabins. They just seemed way more into it than any of the girl cabins, especially the one I was roomed with. None of the girls talked when it was time for bed. My camp last year, we stayed up forever talking about stuff. These girls just seemed a little apathetic when it came to the camp.

But I gave all the guys my email, told them to contact me if they had questions or just didn't know what to do. I hope they keep in contact, because honestly, they were super. We have a good freshman class coming in, most of the campers were awesome. But alas, we finally had to get on the buses, had one final goodbye, and then the long journey home began. I think I fell asleep off and on, but suddenly we were right outside the building again. After making sure the campers all got picked up, I headed for the bus, which went a lot smoother this time. As in, I didn't have to ride three different buses to get home. Checked my email, I've been selected for an interview for the job.

I talked a little, and scheduled it for Thursday, because honestly as soon as I got home I was suddenly tired. I probably could have pulled off another camp, but I'd be dead by the end of it.

Thursday. Get up, get ready, bike over to the interview. Show up an hour early. Whoops. Oh well, I get to look at the exhibits and cool off before I have to go chat with the professor. He was really nice, and after a bit of chatting, he mentioned how they had received almost 80 applications for the position, but they had culled it down with resumes to about a dozen. I was in that dozen. I could have run cheering up and down the halls, but that would have been unprofessional, so I just nodded and smiled enthusiastically. My interview may have gotten a little off course when I mentioned space exploration and he started talking about his research and I mentioned a news article and whoops there went the time. Now it all just comes down to whether my schedule fits what they need. I should hear back from them by Monday.

It's going to be a long weekend.

And that brings me to today. Meredith is finally moved in, we had some experimenting in the kitchen (garlic powder and soy sauce tastes like mana from heaven) and then just some general busy work before school starts, her practicing some calc that she forgot, me making flashcards for Chinese that I forgot. I should have studied more over summer, but too late. Oh, and I've been asked to go talk at the engineering freshman welcome about our Chinese program, since I'm the only engineering major in it. I think there's one more guy, but if I remember right he's currently in China, so that leaves only me. Goodness, look at me being so busy. I hope there are enough hours in the day.

By this time next week, classes will have started and hopefully my life will be a little more stable as to what is actually going on. I'll have a job, either as the space building tour guide or as a Teaching Assistant. I'll have homework on a regular basis to keep me busy. I'll have laundry and grocery shopping to do. No more adventures, sadly, to spice everything up. But I think this year will be just as exciting. I'm certainly excited for it.

Oh, and the meteor shower looked fantastic. Everyone assumed I was the expert once I mentioned it, because literally no one else knew it was happening. This led to me constantly being asked questions like "How many will I see?" How ever many your eyes can catch. "Has it started yet, can we go to the field?" Seeing as it isn't exactly dark yet, I would hazard a guess as to no, it hasn't started yet. "Where should we be looking to see them?" Try up, that usually works for me. And of course I'm the one in charge of the field and making sure the campers don't die in the dark by tripping over stuff, because I was the one leading the star gazing impromptu activity. Oh well, it was enjoyable at least. I'm glad the campers liked it. Probably one of the highlights of my year.

Can't wait for next year.

Ah. Welcome back from the summer. I have to admit, going from 8 weeks to nearly 4 months off was definitely terrible. I had no idea what to do with myself by the time June started. And classes still don't start for another two and a half weeks.

But all in all, not a bad summer. And now I'm getting ready for yet another exciting year in college. Not in the dorms this year, I and two friends have gotten an apartment. Nothing big, nothing fancy, just something manageable that is infinitely cheaper than the actual dorms. I moved in last weekend, because it was convenient and I have a camp I need to get to next week, and I figured my parents would appreciate it if I didn't ask them for a ride to campus at 6 in the morning.

The only bad thing about moving in a week before any of your roommates is if they have all of the furniture:

That there is the living room. And my sad lonely little chair. You can't even see the whole room my camera isn't that wide. So for now, that is the only furniture in the apartment aside from the kitchen table and what is currently in my room. It's a little lonely, and slightly awkward when you open the door for the maintenance man to come in and fix something. You can see his eyes try to do a once over of the room, but all they have to land on is that solitary chair. Like I'm trying to live all alone in a two room apartment and not doing a very good job of it. Oh well. Meredith should be here in a week, but Sam won't be joining us until but a few days before school starts up.

I moved in on Saturday, what do you know, it's hot. Every other day so far has been and every day leading up to it had been tolerable. But not the day I move in. My fridge was ironically too hot to touch and bring in when we first unloaded it from the truck. Thankfully I don't have a lot of things, or it would have been a long day of moving and unpacking. As it is, it still quite a fair amount of time to build my bed and desk up. but of course, once we're halfway done, we realize the piece we were missing was rather important. 

Thankfully the guy I bought the bed from happened to be in the area, and I finally managed to get a hold of him in time to have a bed to sleep on that night. So, once the bed was done, mom and dad left me to my devices, which mostly consisted of unpacking my clothes and wiring my motley assortment of devices. In the morning, I tried to organize what little there was left for me to do, and fixed up the bathroom. Damn shower curtain kept falling until I put some mounting putty on the ends. It worked perfectly. Until I took a shower.

It fell on top of me while I was in the middle of scrubbing my head!

I don't know what was worse, the scare it gave me or the way it hit me on its way down. But after I had wrangled it back in place, naked and thankful I was alone in the apartment, I went to go and clean up the kitchen. Put my dishes away, make some dinner. Mom found a rice steamer in the garage, I decided to give it a whirl (it's so tiny and compact and perfect for this, thanks so much mom!). How have I only been eating rice from a pot all this time?!?! I don't know how, or why, but steamed rice has  to be a thousand times better than the stuff from the pot. It was the best bowl of rice cereal I have ever made for myself.

Went to bed, feeling accomplished after all my hard work and praying the shower curtain didn't fall while I was asleep and scare me awake. My bed is rather close to the ceiling, see? Not so much to be a problem, but if I were to jolt awake at, say, I dunno a crashing and clattering of a damned curtain rod, it would very much become a problem. but I'm still alive today, so nothing could have happened. We'll just have to wait and see if the curtain tries to murder me again.

Today, was uneventful. I got the password for the study-room wifi, which conveniently comes into our living room and is how I am posting this today. Meredith was calling the internet people sometime soon, but I can live with this for now. The maintenance man came today as well, because on move in we discovered this little guy hanging out in the broiler drawer of the stove:

Poor little thing was completely glued to the bottom by its melted rubber tires. It took a little prying, but it came off without too much of a fuss. I definitely like the staff around here, they are cheery and professional. so much better than some student run apartment complex hosted by the university. But they are a little farther than the student ones, not that it really matters when you have a bike. Oh well. We'll just have to see how the year goes, one day at a time.

Tried doing a burpee today. If you don’t know what that is, basically you jump up, drop into a squat, pop your feet out behind you, pump out a quick pushup, hop back to your feet, and jump up, doing it all over again. I could jump, I can squat. What I forgot was that I can’t do pushups, and proceeded to fall on my face. I think I’ll stick with jumping jacks and bicep curls for now, with the occasional pushup routine thrown in, done slowly.

In other news, nothing too terribly exciting this week. Visited a friend twice, but she has cats and I forgot to pack medicine. I think I’m slowly inoculating myself though, as I seem to be lasting longer without dying every time I go over. I honestly thought about letting the cats out (she puts them in her bedroom when I visit, bless her) but then I thought that was probably a little premature, cocky, and insane. With my luck the cats would jump into my lap and I’d go into anaphylactic shock and die on her couch. So they stay in the bedroom still.

And I received an email that I have been offered a TA position. Unfortunately, they offered it right after I had applied to another job, which would severely affect my hours of availability that I had reported. So I can’t say yes. I’m still holding out hope for the one I applied to; not only is it better pay, but I really really really want to do it. It’s basically a tour guide for that building I’ve mentioned before, the space one with the really cool open house and 3D theatre and the meteorite collection. I think I’m a good fit, but I’ve thought that before and still have never been hired, so I’m not holding my breath on it just yet.

Speaking of jobs, I go to camp on Monday. I get to be a counselor, which I’m hoping will be good fun, and that we won’t get rained on. Mostly because the Perseids meteor shower is going to be in full swing, and actually at the peak when we’re up in camp. It also happens to be an excellent stargazing spot, so I’m doubly excited. Now I’m just crossing my fingers that counselors don’t have a curfew, and I can go out around midnight, when the meteors are at their best. But I won’t be back until Wednesday, which also happens to be the day where if I’m selected as a finalist for the tour guide position, will be my interview date. Hooray, I’ll probably smell like camp.

And finally, I’ve got my room situated and cleaned. I’m really liking the set-up, and it’s cozy. The desk is huge, which I love, and the bed is big, which is new. I’ve actually got wall space to put up posters, though I haven’t got around to putting up my stickers from last year.

Here's my room as it looks from the doorway. I am loving this new bed, by the way.

And then a little to the side. There's my fridge, handy little thing, and my backpack on a hook that came with the bed. Just to the left of the frame is where my closet it, but that's not interesting so no picture of that.

My desk, with plenty of room for my computer, extra monitor (if you're a student, seriously, invest in a second screen. It is literally the most useful tool I've had all year) and any textbooks I'll be needing to use, along with space for my actual homework to be done.

And finally, my fishtank! Alright, so it isn't my fish exactly. It's my roommate's from last year. But I've really grown to like him, he is an interesting fish, at least more interesting than most. 

Oh, and I think I’ve learned how to use a gas oven and stove. The stove isn’t so bad, but the oven doesn’t ding or anything once it preheats, and everything smells like gas. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time, but it certainly is a new experience. As long as nothing catches on fire more than it should, I think I’ll do great.

Like I said, camp will be until Wednesday, and I can’t see anything exciting happening this weekend, so you’ll probably have to wait until then to get an update. Unless something spectacular happens in between then and now. Which there won’t be. Because there never is.