The Myth & The Majesty

Christmas was great, once we got my sister home ... Just for the record, that DID happen on Saturday (as Plan B stated), and her story? Egads . Murphy was right. Anyway, Christmas was a lot of fun ... Food (wow, food), some cards, a movie or two, general relaxation ... I'm not sure my appetite will fully recover for a week or two. I'm rather okay with that. Next up: Urbana ! Urbana is a national missions conference held every three years since 1946. 20,000+ college students gather for a week to focus on all aspects of missions at every geographical level -- from opportunities within major US cities to global projects on every (inhabited) continent. In past years, it's taken place in Urbana , Illinois (shocking, hm?); this year, the conference was moved to St. Louis to accommodate the growing number of students that attend. Urbana is a fairly intense week of speakers, seminars, workshops, and the like. It's also a chance for students from across the nation to worship ...

If anything can go wrong, it will. -Murphy's Law There's been a rash of bad weather all across the Midwest the last few days (and most of you just said, "Um, yeah, Ashley, we live here too"). As usual with bad weather, things get complicated. I ended up coming home early and Jeepless; my sister, on the other hand, got stuck in Chicago. Yep. She's on her way home from Italy, and first there were fog issues out of Heathrow in London ... and then her flight from Chicago to Omaha got cancelled. We drove to Omaha before we knew she wouldn't be there ... Yuck. Actually, until about half an hour ago, we weren't totally sure she would make it before Christmas. Luckily, as long as things go moderately smoothly now, she'll be home tomorrow night. Yay! I've missed my sister ... Christmas just wouldn't have felt right without her, especially if she was only nine hours away (although my parents would have possibly driven to Chicago to get her, if tha...

Stumbled across this via my cousin's Facebook, so I thought I'd try it. If you'd like to rank certain traits of mine, you can do so here. (Okay, so I'm wasting some time on the Internet. It's funny how often I post at times like this.)

You’ll be fine tomorrow The sun will rise again It’s never easy to say goodbye You know I’ll always love you You know I always will Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye My old friend (my old friend) Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye We’ve reached the end (we’ve reached the end) I don’t cry with sorrow, I cry with joy The memories we made can’t be destroyed You know I won’t forget you You know I never could And when I said I loved you You know I meant for good -Audio Adrenaline, "Goodbye" from Adios This song has been on my mind a lot lately, for obvious reasons (with the exception of the morning of my MET final, when I woke up with -- no joke -- "If I Only Had A Brain" stuck in my head). Already I miss RC, especially the network of friends I have there. I've left a culture unlike any I'll encounter elsewhere, and it's a rather large shift. Things are changing. Let's hear a big ol' "DUH!" Of course things are changing. They're always changing. But eve...

Home again, home again ... That's right, folks -- I'm back in Sioux Falls. Drove back yesterday (well, rode back, in a complicated fashion since Lou is still not functioning correctly), and it's a good thing; today it's raining. You heard me -- it's December 20th, and it's raining. This state baffles me. Anyway, I'll be cooling it here until the next step is determined (with the exception of Urbana, which I'll probably write about in more detail later this week). I haven't been in town for three and a half months, so I'm actually looking forward to my time here. Assuming, of course, that it doesn't last five years. That might just be too much. Christmas is in full swing here, which in my family means Christmas candy, gift wrapping, preparation for rotten weather, a massive (natural) Christmas tree, food that we normally consider unhealthy, decorations dating back to Early Ashley, and homemade spectacles of a different sort ... The first thing...

You can be the smartest engineer in the world but still not get hired if you don't have the ability to talk to people in a crowd. Giving a speech in front of friends is nervewracking, but giving one in front of superiors is downright frightening. When a girl walks into a roomful of guys, there is no guarantee of conversation. However, there may be many scared deer-in-the-headlights looks. The phrase "linear line" is one that only confuses those outside an engineering school. Thankfully. If you get something out of it, it's not worth regretting. A person can go for a long time without realizing what she's missing. For instance, it took two years for me to realize exactly how valuable my friendships with other girls are. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. You might be stupid, but at least you're happy. Sometimes ignorance is NOT bliss. For instance, halfway through an exam. Time isn't important, unless that time happens to be a deadline. Sleep can be sacrificed f...

It's done. I'm a college graduate. A real, honest-to-goodness engineer. I feel like I should be overflowing with words of wisdom, or crazy sentiments, or ... anything, really. I feel like I should have so much more to say than I do, but the words really aren't there. Graduation was great. The speakers were interesting and blessedly short, it was fairly relaxed, the music was excellent (the Tech choir is almost surprisingly good -- wouldn't necessarily expect that out of a bunch of Techies) ... My good friend Bri was one of the senior speakers, which was also awesome. Particularly cool was that her dad, who is in California waiting for a lung transplant, got to hear her; she had him listening on the phone, and she was wearing her hands-free. Afterwards, there was an open house here, of sorts ... Mostly it was an excuse for people to come over, and it worked pretty well as that. Food, games, good stuff. Now, I'm packing. For the 14th time in 4.5 years, I'm m...

Lou is sick. My poor Flying Jeep needs a new fuel filter rather badly, so I'm taking him in tomorrow to take care of that little problem. I was afraid he wasn't going to get me home tonight, but he pulled it off. Poor Lou. In other news, it looks as though my January may be busier than I anticipated. I'll have two interviews at the very beginning for two very different jobs ... both of which I'm interested in. It'll be an adventure, I suppose. I feel quite odd this week. It's the graduating thing, sure, but it's mostly the everything's ending thing. I took my last regular final this morning. I'm working on the take-home final from Iowa (my version of Hades) right now, but as soon as I finish that (hopefully tomorrow morning), I'm done. Done! Just like that! It's crazy. Really, truly nuts. I'm just as dumbfounded by the fact that I survived as I am by the fact that they've consented to release me into the world. Psychos. Ho...

I am almost a contributing member of society. Or rather, that expectation is becoming more real. Four days from now, I will be a college graduate, whether I like it or not. It's kind of strange the things you can't stop from happening ... Okay, so technically I could stop myself from graduating, but it would be a pretty extreme measure and it's quite possible that the paperwork wouldn't go through before Saturday. In the meantime, I need a sacrificial goat to make Aspen work and I can't find one. Anyone out there know where to find reasonably priced goats this time of year? The sacrificial ones are a bit out of season, unfortunately. Alas, I will have to do without. We'll see how this goes. Have a good week, everybody!

Currently: Listening to: Third Day's "Christmas Offerings" Thinking about: Russia, Wisconsin, Mexico, bookstores, the 450 final, Christmas presents, and pie Just finished: Olive Garden leftovers (oh happy day ...) It's a Thursday and I don't quite know what to do with myself. For the last three months, my Thursdays have been consumed by large group ... but our last meeting was last week. Today? I'm not even swamped with homework as I have been the previous eight semesters on the Thursday before finals week. Although if it makes you Techies feel any better, I have the take-home final written by Satan himself. I'd call that swamped if I had to turn it in tomorrow, but mostly right now I just read it and have the incredible urge to sleep. Driving home today, it occurred to me that, despite everything, I still have a hard time calling myself an adult. I've been renting a house (two different ones, but all the same) in Rapid for a year and a half now. Groce...

I am the crazy lady. It's amazing the realizations that come with decision-making processes, especially when those realizations repeat themselves. Today, as I was eating chili and reading Blue Like Jazz during my lunch break, I paused and realized that the other part of my brain was narrating. Maybe this is where I run into difficulties concentrating. Part of my brain was reading, but the other part associated with conscious thought was narrating. Have you ever thought about who would play you in a movie about you? I have. It was an icebreaker question a few years back and since then I've evaluated several brunette actresses on the basis of whether or not they could play me in a movie. Currently I think Anne Hathaway would be awesome. That sounds irrelevant, and to be brutally honest, I could delete that paragraph and it wouldn't make much of a difference. I bring it up because, for as long as I can remember, I've pictured my life as a movie, complete with the omnicien...

The Last Week has arrived. The Last Week is one that is possibly more dreaded than Finals Week, although Finals Week seems to carry more horrible lore. The connotations of Finals Week make a college student shudder, but the reality of the Last Week would cause instant unconsciousness if the student wasn't already pumped full of caffeine. I am starting my last Last Week, and that ... is odd, more than anything. Sad, yes, but I don't think the fact that I'm almost done has really hit home. Right now, I'm sitting in a computer lab -- "my" computer lab, or so it would seem, because I've spent the majority of the total time I've spent here alone -- trying to come up with deep thoughts about "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Maybe I could write my analysis as the story from the point of view of the Jeep (I like Jeeps), or maybe I could write about the hunts individually and what they mean, or foreshadowing or the horrid wife or the lion b...