sunrays and saturdays

It sounds like a large tornado just went through the middle of Manhattan and may have hit the KSU campus. I'm waiting to hear more about how bad the damage was, but I hope all my friends and family are ok! I wish I had my cousins' cell phone numbers. :(

The last couple of days have been an adventure. A friend that graduated from ISU in meteorology with me is in grad school at the University of Alabama-Huntsville now, and she and two friends came to Oklahoma on Friday to go storm chasing for a week. Friday night just before they arrived at my house I watched Greensburg get wiped out on radar, although I didn't know quite what I had witnessed yet. Seeing that massive circulation go directly over Greensburg had me fairly worried, but the reports of where the tornado went were conflicting at the time.

Anyway, Elise and company got here pretty late, so we didn't talk much until Saturday morning. After looking at the severe weather setup, they decided to come back to my house that evening to stay another night, so I sort of invited myself along on their storm chase. Unfortunately for us Saturday was an awful day to go chasing despite how many tornadoes actually occurred.

( We had three main problems that day: )

So we went home without seeing any tornadoes, but I wouldn't call the day a total waste. I got to see my Dad and hug him and talk to him about what was going on in Greensburg, and seeing the rural tornado damage was a surreal experience. It was also surreal driving around so close to Greensburg. Helicopters were flying all over the place even while there were storms going on, and just knowing that the devastated town was just a few miles away was sobering. Less than 24 hours earlier a beast rolled through that area and left its mark all over the landscape. I wish I had taken more pictures, but it seemed that we were always in a hurry to catch up to storms. I tried to take some pictures from the car, but they're blurry as hell.

Moving on to Sunday, I spent the majority of the day studying for my Radiation final. Elise and company went chasing out in western Oklahoma and Jeremy was working midnight shifts, so I had a fair amount of time to myself during the day to study. The final was at 8am the next morning, and I felt as if I did rather well considering how distracted I was by everything.

And now, I have a reason to be elated. I got the final grades back from Radiation, and I got an A!!! I needed that on so many levels. Today I finished my IT Skills semester project, so I only have one more project to complete to bring an end to my first year as a graduate student! I'm so ready for a break, even if it's going to be a short one.

1. Where were you 1 hour ago? Here in the house...I haven't gone anywhere all day.
2. Who will be your next kiss? Jeremy. I don't kiss anyone else except for maybe the cat.
3. Is there anything pink within 10 feet of you? My comfy pajama pants have a pink waistband, there's a pink pencil on my desk, my black squishy bean-bag pillow on the floor has pink trim, my cloud physics book has a pink tab sticker thing in it, and my eraser is pink. That sounds like a lot, but I actually have a history of hating the color pink. I really had to search around for these things.
4. When is the last time you went to the mall? Oh wow....uh...earlier this summer Jeremy and I went to the mall to look at the digital tvs at Sears. I don't think I actually bought anything for myself though. I can't shop with him and still get the things I want. He either says it's ugly or that it costs too much. :/
5. Are you wearing socks right now? nope
6. When was the last time you went out of the state? I went to Minnesota for the first few weeks of August, but I'm going to Kansas tomorrow.
7. Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days? Nah.
8. What was the last thing you had to drink? Coffee this morning. I really don't drink much water.
9. What are you wearing right now? tight white tank top, dark gray pajama pants, light blue bra, light blueish underwear, black elastic hairtie
10. What was your last purchase? Sonic for dinner last night.
11. Last food you ate? ham, mashed potatoes, and corn with white country gravy. Mmm mm good, yet so so bad for me.
12. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone? Dad
13. Have you bought any clothing items in the last week? Don't think so. I have an itch to go shopping soon, though.
14. Do you have a pet? PHOEBE!
15. What's the last sporting event you watched? I just caught the end of the Twins game since Jeremy was watching it. They got pummeled, unfortunately.
16. What is your favorite class? Ehhhh...I'm doing the best in Cloud Physics, but I find Weather Radar Theory much more interesting. It's all in the instructor.
17. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be? Either back up in Ames or off on some outstanding vacation somewhere far more interesting than Oklahoma.
18. What is the last thing you purchased online? I renewed my American Meteorological Society membership and renewed my journal subscriptions. God this survey is making my life sound so uninteresting.
19. How old are your parents? Not that old relative to other parents of kids my age. Mom is 41. Dad is 46.
20. What's your favorite soup? I love anything creamy/cheesy with veggies in it. Potato soup is nummy too.
21. Do you miss anyone? I definitely miss all my buddies at Iowa State. It's taking me awhile to get to know people here at Oklahoma.
22. Last play you saw? Oh wow, I so do not watch plays. You mean live? Ummm, this is going to sound horrible, but the last play I saw live was probably some high school thing that my sister was in back in my sophomore or junior year of high school. I have movies of big plays/musicals like Chicago and Moulin Rouge if that counts.
23. What are your plans for the day? The day's almost over, but I still need to grade a mountain of papers and finish some homework before I go to Kansas.
24. Who is the last person you messaged on myspace? I think it was Lisa.
25. Ever go to camp? There was a strange camp sort of overnight thing I had to do when I was in the Freshman Honors Program. "Camp" is different from camping, which I have done a lot more of.
26. Were you an honor roll student in school? High school, definitely. College, about half the time I made the dean's list.
27.What do you know about the future? I know that I will have some control over where mine takes me, but there will inevitably be things that are out of my control. I could crash into a cow on my way up to Pratt tomorrow...not much I can do 'bout that.
28. Are you wearing any perfume or cologne? God no. Who would I be trying to impress if I haven't left the house all day?
29. had to step out for a moment. Um..
30. Where is your best friend located? Well, I had to confirm it first, but I live with one. I have several very close friends from Iowa State that are kind of scattered now (many are still around Iowa though). My buddy from high school is in the west Texas town of El Paso. And then I have all of you wonderful people online who are scattered all over the world and yet I can still find you all in one place. Pretty awesome, isn't it?
31. Do you have a tan? Shit, if you can call it a tan. This is as dark as I get, which isn't very dark.
32. How old do you want to be when you have kids? Uhh, aiming for around 30 I guess, but the plan is to have them when I'm just at the right place in my life to support other human beings and give them a happy environment. I reserve the right to get out and see things and travel first before I commit to children. I gotta be selfish now to make up for all the selfless time I'll have as a parent. But of course, this is The Plan. "The best laid plans of mice and men....."
33. Do you collect anything? Being a geology freak I like interesting rocks (many of which are on my desk right now). I have a drawer full of keepsakes from various places I've been and things I've done (paper things like event programs, ticket stubs, name tags, national park brochures, and all the cool freebie stuff you can pick up at fairs and conferences). I have a budding music collection on my computer that I'm adding to all the time as well.
34. Any piercings or tattoos? Just a hole in each ear.
35. How do you like your soda? I like vanilla, rum, or vanilla vodka in coke, and I like Pepsi for ice cream floats. Other than that...well...I like them cold...
36. Do you like hot sauce? only the stuff they have at IHOP with the wooden cap that's not really hot but still really, really, tasty.
37. Last time you took a shower? This morning.
38. Who do you like? You should ask me who I don't like. That's an easier question.
39. What is your mood? Sort of sleepy and craving coffee.
40. Are you someone's best friend? I had to confirm it first, but yes. :)
41. What's the last TV show you watched? Other than the baseball game tonight, I saw Grey's Anatomy and Smallville last night.

Happy 22nd Birthday to ME! I've received four birthday wishes already (one in person, one on LJ, one on IM, and one on Facebook), and I'm only 31 minutes into it. Methinks this will be a good birthday.

Make that five! Jeremy's singing to me over the phone. Silly boy. :p

We hosted the National Weather Service's Advanced Storm Spotter training last night. Seeing all those tornado and thunderstorm videos has gotten me antsy for storm chasing in spring. Elise was talking to me about it last night, and what she said was exactly right. As meteorology students, we're so saturated with calculus, physics, equations, theories, and weather maps that we don't see enough actual weather. It's nice to see what we derive in those equations in actual physical form once in awhile to make everything seem a lot less abstract. You've gotta put the theory and the physical together or else it all is just an exercise in mathematics. As Dr. Chen would say in his lovably Taiwanese accent, "You have to know how to use it."

When I first started school, I was afraid that learning all the physics behind how clouds form and such would make them seem less fascinating to me in a way. They'd lose the sense of wonder that I had always found in them before. That's not really the case, though. If anything, I find it all to be even more interesting. I can look at thunderstorms and understand them on a level that I never could before. It's not smoke and mirrors.

Granted, physics is my worst subject, and I knew this going into it from the start. I don't find a great amount of enjoyment in deriving potential temperature or working through Mason's method of solving for droplet growth by collision and coalescence, and I probably never will. My brain just isn't wired in a way that easily gets stuff like that, but it doesn't really make me outright stupid or slow. I'm still a fairly bright person, and I probably grasp the concepts a lot faster than most. I just process other subjects much, much faster. Maybe focusing on a heavily physics-based program is simply an exercise to make me a better all-around person by forcing myself to concentrate on my weaker areas. Or maybe I just found the thought of being a scientist a lot more enticing than being an accountant, writer, or computer programmer. Who knows.

Comment. I will attempt to match you up with someone who is on my friends list, but who is not on yours. It's an exercise in being social! Or something. (Or a sneaky way of testing how well I know you all. Not really sure.)

I won't be able to look at this again until about 6 this evening, so I want to see lots of comments when I get back!

Happy Birthday Anne! :)

Today has been such a blah day so far. Nobody seems to be having a truly great day, including myself. It's just one of those days you wished you would have slept through.

Only my friends would send me something so endearing....

Lara, I received the shirts in the mail today and all three fit great! Thank you muchly!

When I walked in the door this afternoon after class I got hit with litterbox odor like it was a brick wall, so I galavanted to Wal-Mart and picked up every deodorizing/fragrance/carpet powder/febreeze-ish thing I could get my hands on. When my apartment smells like a cat's ass, I do not feel comfortable inviting people over. End of story. I also cleaned all the disgusting, rotten food out of the fridge. This place feels so much cleaner all of a sudden, and I didn't do a damn thing to the rest of the place. Just the smell alone is enough to make it feel clean.