Friday, September 09, 2005

I miss the beach

so I'm back. and I survived the shortened week. Tuesday was one of the longest days in recent memory. I woke up around 5am with only about four and a half hours of sleep under my belt and had to drag myself to the airport. luckily I had some coffee and was able to get an entire assignment typed on during the hour it took to get back to Phoenix. Brian picked me up at the airport (thanks again!) and I headed home, only to briefly unpack and then bike over to school for a long day of work and classes. the good news was that I had finished all of my homework before I got to school (something that doesn't always happen). the bad news was that I had to be at school until 8pm. ugh. anyway, I survived.

the beach and the accompanying weekend were awesome. I got into LA on Friday and spent most of the day hanging out with my mom. it wasn't completely horrible. the coolest thing was that I went back to my old high school for a visit. my old high school physics teacher had sent me an email earlier in the week and said I should come by and say hi if I could. we had a nice little talk and he wants me to come back some time and talk to the girls about college and physics and grad school and stuff like that. apparently, I am the first and only person from my all-girls high school to ever get a degree in physics. so that made me feel pretty cool, but also more aware of the gender problem in physics. but anyway, that's a problem to think about later on (like not right now). I also saw my dad for a while and that was nice as well.

Saturday we drove up to Carpinteria beach (just south of Santa Barbara). the weather was absolutely perfect all weekend (we stayed until Monday afternoon). eventually everyone else in the extended family showed up (although my brother didn't come up until Sunday). it was lots of fun hanging out with my cousins and aunts and uncles and everyone. my newfound obsession with sudoku was echoed in my stepdad and grandfather, so that was amusing as well. (in case you don't know what I'm talking about, two things: a. it is extremely addicting and b. it is great.) so I got a bit of a tan (because even though I live in the land of eternal sun, we spend most of day in air conditioned buildings or automobiles) and caught up with everyone. one of my cousins just started college at cal state long beach. her suite has the same bathroom facilities we did at ucsd (two toilets, two showers) except she has to share it with 13 other girls instead of just 7 like I did. yikes! good luck with that!

so besides all that, classes are going pretty well. I don't feel overwhelmed yet, but I don't think I will either.

oh, and I failed the comps (along with more than half of the people who took them) so I will be taking them again in January. sounds like fun, huh?

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