Happy Thanksgiving, from Texas!

Today I had to return to work after my brief but very enjoyable Thanksgiving break. Although work is getting a little better, as I have more to do and less time trying to make myself look busy, I would rather post videos from Thanksgiving than talk about work.

First, Joy says "Hi". 

While we were eating dinner on Wednesday, Luke said something that made us all laugh.  Titus wanted a turn having everyone laugh at him, so he told us all wonderful "joke".  It was so good I had him repeat it in front of the camera.  After telling it, he said he wanted to tell Aunt Mari his joke. I told him she would be able to watch him telling it because I was recording it, but he said "I want to see Aunt Mari and tell her my joke." Awww. So Mari, you'll need to skype with your nephew soon.

The rest of my videos don't really have any explanation. They're all from us preparing our Thanksgiving dinner on Wednesday night.

My More Intersting Pursuits

I started working at a new client site last week. I was afraid that it would be a depressing environment, boring work, and non-fun people. So far I have been a bit pleasantly surprised; the environment is nice, its only shortcoming being the lack of good comestibles nearby. The work is not the most exciting thing I can imagine, but because it is something I am familiar with (SSIS) I am able to jump right in and impress my coworkers with how quickly I crank out deliverables. And so far I have found my coworkers pretty personable. While these factors are better than I had feared they might be, I still would like the opportunity to move on to something more interesting in the not-too-far future.

On Tuesday, I had to have my laptop scanned by the client's IT department to make sure it was virus-free and safe to connect to the network. After delivering my computer to the IT area for said scan, I returned to the communal work room for the remainder of the 2-hour scanning process, where I realized how challenging it is for an IT consultant to appear productive with no computer in front of them. So I got out a pad of paper and a pen, hoping to at least look like I was writing important notes about something. But what to actually do with this pad? I had no notes to write. So I attempted a portrait of my stuffed penguin which sits on my desk. On the left is my drawing; on the right is a photograph of the actual penguin. I am quite impressed with my artistic creation!

On Wednesday I went to the mall for no reason in particular. I found a few awesome things, which are laid out below in photos arranged less artistically than Mari's similar posts and described in less appealing language. Mari: if you want a not-very-cool-project, try to make my clothing purchases sound more fun.

Left: Plum ruffle-top shirt; originally $39.50, I got it for $7.50 at the Limited. Behind that, a bright green sweater I got in Spain. Gray skirt, originally $59.50, I got it for $24.99 at the Limited. Fall-Green flutter-sleeve blouse (100% silk!), originally $69.00, I got it for $23.97 at Banana Republic. With the silk blouse is a brown cardigan I got a the Limited a few weeks ago, also on sale but I don't remember any specific prices.

Right: Jade Knit dress with tie waist, ruffle detailing on front, and made of very nice fabric, as indicated by its original price of $98.00!!! I got it for the a measly $23.00! Yay!

In summary, I spent $79.46 on items that originally totalled an impressive $266. I feel very pleased.

Sparse Update

I know that I haven't updated in a long time.

Last Tuesday (a week ago tomorrow) I went with Mama and Daddy to drop Mari, Chris, Pounce and Mouse off at the airport to go to Japan. Obviously I was sad because I am going to miss them (indeed, I already miss them- mosly Mari and Chris, not Pounce and Mouse quite as much). But it was comforting to know that we'll be able to see their smiling faces via webcam! I have already had at least three webcam conversations with Mari in the (less than) one week they've been gone, and they were very nice! I'm glad we have that technology. It makes them feel not so far away.

As I headed back to work Tuesday after dropping them off, I felt glad to be returning to a normal routine- sitting at my usual desk, around the usual coworkers, would help me not think about the absence of Mari and Chris. So I felt very sad when I was told that that was my last day at this client; the next day I would be reporting to the home office!  Normally this would have been good news, since I had long ago run out of work to do for this client, and the atmosphere was a little bit depressing.  But on this day of having to part with my sister, I didn't feel like also parting with my familiar desk in which I had been sitting since July.

So for the past 3-1/2 days I've been at the Houston office, and I've taken up a project: learn how to build a website.  It's kind of fun, and it's cool to be learning something new and useful.  If I get good enough, I may endeavor to replace this blog with my own website! For those of you who might be asking "wait- isn't this blog a website that you have built?" the answer is "no, not really."  In setting up a blog, all the hard work has been done for you- the blogger simply chooses fonts and formats and whatnot.  In building my own website, I would start from scratch.  Think of it as the difference between baking a cake from scratch and ordering a cake from a store where you simply choose flavor, icing, and shape.

So far I have learned how to do the basics of a website, like put in text, pictures, and even links, but it doesn't look very nice. I am also still hosting only on my local machine, which means that it looks like a website and I can open in my internet browser, but noone else could access it from their browser because it's not on the web.  Anywho, once I learn those things I may have my own publicly-viewable website! Wouldn't that be neat?

A Nerdy Reason to Miss College

First of all, I know I still haven't posted pictures from the hurricane.  I feel guilty about this, but I just don't feel like spending any time at the computer once I get home from work.  Right now, for example, I am blogging from work.

For those of you who might be asking "blogging at work? Are you being a bad employee and blowing off your responsibilities?" I would answer "No, I am currently waiting to hear from the client.  Today we're getting some stuff to run on the server; we had some errors at first, but after some troubleshooting I got it to run successfully and am now waiting to hear back from him about what he wants to do next."

Which leads me to the topic of this blog: as I sit here at my computer, anxiously waiting to hear back from the client, I realize I have an excited anticipation similar to what I feel when waiting to recieve a score on a test I think I did well on.  I think I did very well in this fix, and am hoping to hear from him "Great job! This is exactly what we needed.  I'll go ahead and move on to the next step and let you know how it goes" (equivalent to A+, or maybe just a regular A on a test), but a little bit afraid that he'll say "No, this doens't work.  This isn't what we needed. I don't see how we can make any progress until this is changed" (equivalent to a B-, or C, or F on a test).

This made me realize something: I like tests.  I remember thinking this when I was actually in school, so it's not just something I'm imagining now that I've been out of school for several months.  But I like the chance to test my knowledge and see if I can come up with solutions to challenging problems.  Some people dislike tests because of the studying that is required, but for most of the classes I've taken (or maybe I'm just remembering math classes; I like math tests) the amount of time/energy required to study for a test is significantly less than the amount of time spent during a non-test week on homework.  The best example is the graduate-level math class I took last fall.  Each week I spent 3-5 hours (at least one of which was spent in my professor's office getting help) on really difficult homework problems.  On test week, however, there was no homework assignment, and since I had learned so much by doing the homework, there was very little left to digest to prepare for the test.

Putting the "IKE" in "Yikes"

Please take a moment to appreciate my cheesey title.

[pause for appreciation]

So this weekend I had planned to go up to College Station to visit Justin.  Imagine my delight when I found out that, due to hurricane Ike, work was ending at noon on Thursday and cancelled all day on Friday!  Yay! 3-1/2 day weekend!  So I got to go up to College Station Thursday evening after spending some time in Katy with the parents.

The weekend was pretty good, but wierd, since the hurricane made it rainy and a bit windy, so we couldn't do much outside.  Sometime Saturday I got an email saying that the client's office would be closed on Monday.  I'm thinking "yay! no work Monday!".  On Sunday I got an email from my apt complex saying there was no power there. I start formulating a plan: go back to Katy on Sunday night, stay with the parents and hang out with the fam all day Monday.  Sounds like fun.

On Sunday evening we had a regrouping conference call.  I find out that, while the client office will be closed on Monday, the home office does in fact have power, and that people should report to work there.  If you need to take some time to deal with property damages/hurricane debris/help family members, you should take a day of vacation to do so.  Boo! That stinks!  So I am at work now.  Since I don't have power or running water at my apartment, I am staying with Mama and Daddy in Katy and commuting to work in Houston.  Today wasn't too bad because MOST people don't have to go to work today so there was no traffic.  I'm not looking forward to the commute once downtown is back open; hopefully by then my apt will have power so I can go back.

I did stop by today (I had to get my key to the office), and there was an unpleasant odor in my apartment. It wasn't too strong and it didn't reak of spoiled food; it seemed more like a musty smell.  Now that I'm back at work, I look forward to getting back to life as normal.

Also, there is a ton of hurricane debris (trees, branches, fences, etc.) all over the streets around there.  I've taken a few pictures and hope to take some more, which I plan to post online later. I'll have to fetch my camera cable, which is currently in my powerless, musty-smelling apartment.

You know, for kids

Today Luke introduced Justin and me to a very fun game, I think called "ripstick jousting". The idea is pretty simple: two kids get on ripsticks (those pseudo-skateboards that require wobbling your feet and are hard to stay on) and get whackers (Luke made these- PVC pipe with some styrofoam-type stuff on the ends) and try to knock the other kid off. Even though I was not skilled enough to even stay on the ripstick, it was very fun to watch the kids who were good enough joust.

Last weekend I went up to College Station for the first TAMU football game of the season. It was quite a disappointment. But other than the bad football, I had a pretty good time. Our graduate student friends who are from Iran came with us, and I think they had a pretty good time. They had never been to or even watched a football game before, so in addition to explaining all the A&M traditions, which is enough of a challenge, I was also trying to summarize the rules of the game. Justin and I enjoyed our personal tradition of eating overpriced football hotdogs.

This past weekend Justin came to Houston, where we did a bit of exploring.
We went to Swirl, a frozen yogurt place where you add your own toppings:

We went to Discovery Green, a new park in Houston, where we saw a Scottish Dance performance. The dancing was decent, but the real fun was seeing the park. There were remote-control mini sailboats for rent, a fountain for kids to play in, several grassy lawns, and a shaded boardwalk area with free WiFi.

We also went to Ikea to get Justin a kitchen table for his duplex (no picture). Overall it was a fun weekend.

Dressing like a Big Kid!

One of the most fun things about work is getting to wear chic "grown-up" outfits. Although I start to get tired of having to wear nice clothes by the end of the week and look forward to wearing jeans on casual Friday, there is still some excitement in wearing dressy clothes and feeling like a legit adult, with a job, a computer bag, and everything! Mari recomended that I start taking some pictures of my work clothes and posting them, which I thought would be a fun idea. In fact, I remember that last week (or was it the week before?) I took some pictures of my outfit (with new pants and shoes!) and meant to post them online but never did. Today when I got home from work I took a picture of my outfit so I could post it on this blog. When I downloaded the pictures from my camera, I found out that the outfit I photographed 2 weeks ago was the very same (exact same- note the undershirt and the shoes) I wore and photographed today! I guess I really like this outfit.

Outfit 1: First Day of work.

Fitted Suit Jacket: Banana Republic, $128

Black Dress Pants: Gap, $60

Sweater: Kasper, $45
Tweed computer bag: Harrod's, 90 GBP

Outfit 2a: Just after buying these pants!
Puff-sleve V-neck top: Limited, $56

Tomato Cami: Express, $25

Kakhi slacks: Express, $80

Shoes: Steve Madden, $160

Outfit 2b: Today

[See above]

Also note:

Leather computer tote: Wilson's Leather, $160

Oscar-the-Grouch trashcan: Ikea, $20

(Prices are estimates and may be up to %300 of actual price paid)

Bad Day at Work

I had meant to take some pictures of a cute new outfit I got earlier this week and post them on this blog, but this week has been busier than I expected. Tuesday Justin came over and we went running together, then ordered chicken wings and watched the Olympics. Last night I drove through about 1 hr 15 min of traffic to go have tacos with Jusitn and one of his friends who had proudly told us earlier that "I make excellent tacos; y'all will have to come over some time so I can make tacos."

Today I had to come in to work early because we were to have a conference call at 7:30. I usually come in at 8 and leave at 5, but since I came in today half an hour early, I figured I could leave at 4:30. The problem with work lately is that I don't have much I can do; there is a lot to be done, and we're working on a deadline, but when we're this far into it most people are busy doing their own work and don't have time to teach me stuff. So I have only had a few actual tasks here and there that I am able to complete. But I feel like some people expect me to have more technology background than I really do, so the little they give me to do requires knowledge that I don't have. It is very frustrating. Today around 3:30 I got sucked into a conference call where I was occasionally asked about things I had been "working" on. I was able to confidently answer about 40% of the things asked of me. And the conference call came across some problems that I might or might not have any connection with, so it didn't end until 6 pm! Imagine my frustration, when I was supposed to get to leave at 4:30 and have a relaxing evening to myself, and instead I found myself stuck at work until 6! Terrible! AND, when the meeting finally ended, it was decided that we would reconvene at 8 to resolve these issues. BLEH! I'm actually on that conference call right now. Thankfully my new cell phone has a headset, so I can mute myself and type in my blog and watch olympics while on a boring conference call.

After work I tried to call Justin, who didn't answer, then Mari, who was busy, and Mama, who also didn't answer, to complain about my crappy day. (there was more crappiness than described above, but that is just not fun to write about).

The good news is that I SHOULD get to leave early tomorrow since I stayed late today.
Extra time today: 1.5 hours => I should leave 1.5 hours early tomorrow, i.e. work 8-3:30, OR sleep in a bit and work 8:30-4.
If I get to count this conference call as work time, then maybe I could even leave 2 or 2.5 hours early tomorrow.... that would be pretty awesome.

Blog Guilt

I don't know if anyone still reads this, since I haven't posted in almost a month. Which leads me to...
Blog Guilt. I feel like I have let down all my adoring fans by not posting new material in so long. But after sitting in front of a computer all day at work, I am not very interested in booting up my home computer so I can type about my day. I'm going to try to blog a bit more, but probably won't be much more than once a week.

"So how's work, Hannah?"
Work is going pretty well. Last week I got transfered to a different project (still with the same client, so I didn't have to move cubes). This project is quite far along, but the SSIS was developed by 2 guys, one of whom have since moved on to a different project, and one of whom left for vacation and will return to a different project still. So last Thursday I had a 2.5-hour phone call with the guy about to leave for vacation so he could transfer all his knowledge to me. I think I retained about 50% of it, which is better than 0%. Since then I have become a little more familiar with the project, and yesterday I spent all day actually doing work! Ask me about deconstructing the database to make all the column widths match!

"How do you like your coworkers?"
I like them pretty well. I think coworkers have potential to make work much better or much worse. Thankfully I enjoy my cubicle neighbors. Last night we (me and Justin, plus 3 guys from work and their girlfriends/wives) went to Miller Outdoor Theatre and watched Julius Caesar. It was a lot of fun.

"So why are you blogging at 11:20 am? Don't you have work to do?"
Sort of. Our project has already started deploying and we're currently fixing bugs. Since I am less involved in this project than most people, I can't do too much of that. I am currently waiting some further instruction from a coworker who got side-tracked with a more important problem.

"Why don't you have any pictures up? Are you going to post some pictures soon?"
Hopefully.

New Job: Update

I realize it has been two full weeks since I had anything to say, or time to say it. I will summarize the past two weeks:
Week 1, aka Dolphin School: I learned a lot about the company. You might call it brainwashing; whatever it was, it left me feeling pumped about working for them!!! But I was very busy all week- dinner with all the new employees after work on Tuesday, company Happy Hour on Wednesday, dinner with Simon & Katrina & Carsen on Thursday. On the way to see S&K my car overheated, so Simon had to come pick me up and then he kindly lent me his car for the next day. (Thanks Simon!)
Weekend: Mama and Daddy and Justin came up for Simon's birthday. It was fun. Justin and Daddy fixed my radiator. (Thanks Justin and Daddy!)
Week 2, aka Developer training: I learned a lot. It was a bit overwhelming because I was the only one in the class who had no programming experience (other than what I did in high school). But it was not impossible, and I think I will really pick it up once I start working.

This past weekend I was very glad to return to my apartment in Houston. Justin had bought me some plants to make it seem more homey! I really like them. He did a great job of picking them out.

Today I started my first day of actual work. I have been put on a project updating/tansforming old eclectic databases for an energy company (whose name I don't want to say because I don't want it coming up in Google searches). The guy in charge of the project emailed me some work flow documents to look over, one of which I understood. He explained the project to me in general terms, after which the other documents were very slightly clearer. Thankfully they will not be throwing me in head first; he said for this project the main goal is for me to learn. I have been assigned to two employees who are doing a lot of the actual coding, to learn from them and start taking some of their more managable tasks.

I know this is a boring, un-illustrated blog post, but I'm kind of tired and need to go to bed so I can get up early for work tomorrow. (that's the NOT fun part of working). Just think- soon I'll be an expert in actually creating websites from scratch!

...And Work Begins!

Today I started my first day of training. I had to drive up to Dallas last night; my goal was to arrive around 8 or 9 pm. I got a bit of a late start, then had to go by Cracker Barrel to get an audio book (because libraries are closed on Sundays) and take Justin home, so I didn't get into Dallas until around 9:30. Also, my air conditioner stopped working early on in my drive- I think it was out of freon. No big deal. Until I couldn't find the hotel. I had gotten directions from Google Maps, but somehow I couldn't find the street I was supposed to turn on, and then when I turned around, I found that the road I had been on turned into the one I was supposed to be on, but I was already past the place where I was supposed to be. I tried turning around to go in the other direction, but found that direction blocked because of construction. Long story short, I drove around lost for about an hour and a half in my stuffy car looking for my hotel, going through all sorts of shady areas. It was very distressing.

When I finally arrived at my hotel, it was about 11. Then I had to take a shower and do stuff to get ready for my first day of work: decide what to wear, get all the stuff I need together, figure out how to get there, etc. I went to bed feeling frazzled and nervous, afraid that I would be tired all day and that people would be mean, I would be inappropriately dressed, and it would be obvious to everyone that I had very little technical expertise.

After a not-quite-long-enough sleep which was interrupted by a fire alarm at 4 am, I awoke and got ready for work. I allotted way too much time to get there and arrived about 45 minutes early, but I could hear Justin's voice in my head saying, "that will make a good impression. Early is better than late, even if you're 45 minutes early." Good point, Justin. The HR woman who greeted me was very friendly, allaying my fears of everyone being mean, and she admitted she knew next to nothing about computers, which reassured me. In fact, everyone I met at work today seemed nice, and the main IT guy said he would be happy to answer any questions we had, which is good because I am sure to have lots. All the new hires (there were 8 of us: 7 boys, 1 girl) got lots of paperwork to fill out about medical insurance, dental insurance, vision insurance, short term/long term disability insurance, life insurance, 401(k), profit sharing, and Employee Stock Ownership Plans. It was overwhelming and a little boring, but cool because it meant that I am technically a "grown up" (gasp!!! Can it be?!?!?!?!?) and will be making enough money to be "important."

Under our overwhelming stacks of forms to fill out we were each given a padfolio containing pens, pads of paper, and corporate note cards. Neat!!! Apparently my padfolio was used, because one of the pads of paper had some notes on it: call Gayle, go to costco, deoderant, etc. As I sifted through my pile of papers, I found two very similar packets about life insurance and asked the HR woman, "do we need to fill out both life insurance packets?" She seemed confused. "You have two? Where did you get that other one?" "It was in my padfolio," I explained. Her ensuing laughter alerted me to the fact that noone else had this auxilary outdated packet... whoever needed to call Gayle had also left this information in their padfolio.

Overall my first day of work was good. Tomorrow and the rest of this week I'll be learning about the company and what I'll be doing for them.

I like living here!

After spending several days in my apartment with nothing to do but explore, decorate and shop, I have decided I like living here. I am sad that soon I have to enter a world of full-time work which will not be punctuated by any month long breaks like school is. Sigh.


Here are some things I like about my apartment:

• The decor, obviously.


• My neighbors. It's easy (at least for me) to feel isolated somewhere like this when I'm living by myself. Since my apartment overlooks the pool, I often see/hear groups out there having a great time, and since I am not out there with them, I might start to feel like I am the only outsider in this place where everyone else knows one another. Sad! But the other day I decided to knock on some of my neighbors doors. Of the four doors I tried, only two people answered, but those who did were nice. One was a girl a little older than me who is a teacher and has a roommate who is a teacher as well. She said she was glad that I came to introduce myself because she has never gotten to know the people that live around her. The other guy was French and moving pack to France in a month or so, but he also was nice and said he hasn't really gotten to know his neighbors yet. So my neighbor-meeting accomplished two things. One: I am not the sole outsider stuck in one big party of good friends; there are lots of people here who don't know their neighbors. And two: I feel a little bit less alien just having spoken to the people who live near me.


• The area. There is a lot of interesting stuff around here, including a lot more old stuff than you see in Katy. The Kroger I went to yesterday looks like it was built in the 70s or 80s and has a fun retro look. And most of the people I have encountered have been pretty nice. I always like nice people.


• Being able to put my own personal touches on the arrangement of my apartment. In the model apartment, they had a little metal tray with some martini glasses and such sitting on the end of the kitchen counter. I don't drink a lot of martinis, but Mama suggested that I put some tea stuff there. So I made a nice little arrangement involving: the new cream dish and sugar bowl from Bed Bath & Beyond, my butter dish also from BB&B, the kitchen tray Auntie Sonja gave me, a bowl of fruit, and a squiggly mirror that I got to hang on the wall my sophomore year of college that could never stay on the wall so I decided to use as a visual interest piece on horizontal surfaces. You'll also notice a small bowl of skittles, which I put out because I knew a certain little boy who likes skittles was coming over.

Stuff For My New Apartment!

Today I went shopping with the goal of getting stuff for my apartment with the gift cards I had recieved for graduation. My first stop was Bed Bath & Beyond, to which Justin's grandparents had given me a gift card. I got: a stepstool (for my kitchen, to reach the top cabinets), a trashcan for my bathroom, an over-the-door towel rack for my bathroom, a sugar dish and cream dish (for tea/coffee!), and a butter dish. I did not take photos of any of that stuff because it is not very exciting looking, but very useful.

After that I went to Pier 1 Imports, where I had a gift card from Simon and Katrina. I was hoping to get something to decorate my coffee table (because I have noticed that something that makes model apartments look nicer than my college apartments is artistically arranged stuff on the coffee table) and/or something, preferably plant-like, to put in a corner. I was able to get both!!!

For the corner I got a funky tall, skinny glass vase (on clearance!), a big fake leaf of some kind (maybe palm?), and two chutes of fake leafy bamboo to put in the tall skinny vase. Here is a picture of this decorative conglomeration out of context, and a picture of it in context: I decided to put it on a box (not visible) between the couch and the coffee table.

My next decorative jackpot was a glass leaf (about the size of a small serving tray), on which I put three light brown votive candles. Bonus: they smell really good. I wish I could post a smell online. Since the leaf is dark and my coffee table is dark, I also got a light brown/tan placemat to go under the leaf for a pleasing visual contrast. When I got home I realized that I had some blue stones that were left if my duplex last year, so I put those in the leaf as well. What do you think? Does it look better with or without the blue stones?

Green Frog?

New Apartment!

On Thursday I started moving into my new apartment! It took several days to get my stuff in, but I think now almost everything has been moved in and a good portion of my decorating has been done! Here are some photos:

Left: My kitchen/ bar/dining area. Disregard the moving debris on the table.

Right: Justin relaxes after helping arrange my furniture and hang my wall decorations. Notice the banana leaf! The couch, though pretty, does not really match my intended decor theme, so I plan to recover it in black & brown, with green throw pillows.

It was quite a hassle to get my furniture. The couch was in Justin's grandparents' garage, and we needed a truck to transport it. Thankfully Justin found a friend who is living in Houston, has a truck, and has been bored because he doesn't know anyone. So he helped us move the couch and then we took him out to dinner. Win-win! My kitchen table, chairs, and living room tables were in College Station in my old duplex, currently inhabited by some of Justin's friends, so we drove up there yesterday to get that stuff. When we got back and got the stuff set up after a long day of driving, Justin helped me hang all the stuff on my walls like I wanted it. That evening we watched a movie, drank champagne, and made dinner. It was fun!

My curtains still need to be hung, and I still want to re-cover the couch and put some more pictures up. But once I have done that (or most of that) I will make a vidoe tour of my apartment and post it on my blog!

Also, I am in the market for chair for my bedroom- not a desk chair, but more like a comfy chair for reading and things like that. Does anybody have one such chair that they are trying to get rid of?

They do exist!

I accepted a job with an IT consulting company in December. Since then, my communication with them has been rather sparse. I'm starting in less than 2 weeks, and Mama even joked that the company had folded and noone bothered to tell me- I would show up for work the first day and find a "building for rent" sign. Haha... kind of.

At the beginning of this week I got a call from someone in the HR department about making travel arrangements for my training in Dallas. Yay! They still exist! Then yesterday I recieved an email with even more info. I was so excited! The email gave me a list of stuff I need to do before the first day of work: fill out direct deposit forms, employee info forms, company template resume, etc. Hm... this is not the type of exciting work stuff I had envisioned. In fact, I felt a bit intimidated, particularly by the resume template. It outlined where I was supposed to put all my experience, special certification, and highlighted skills. Let's see...

Experience: Taught calculus to freshmen for several years. Never used computer.

Special Certification: Lifeguard & CPR certified (expired 4-5 years ago).

Highlighted skills: Math; Baking; Good with kids.

I'm not sure if these are the things clients will be looking for in their computer programmers.

After my previous post, I had a request for more photos. So I will conclude this post with a few photos of things that have been going on recently.

Jenn and I went to an Astros game, with some tickets that the Lotts got from someone-or-other.

Justin and I drove up to College Station. Check out his awesome sunglasses! Those are his granddad's.

I took Titus to the Inflatable Zone for his half-birthday (because I celebrate that instead of his actual birthday, which is too close to Christmas).

Justin and I went to my friend Daniel's wedding.

Bustling House

I am entering my final week of living at home before I move into my own apartment!!! (This Thursday, June 26). This week our house be operating at maximum capacity. Actually, that's now quite true- we could squeeze one more sleeper into the crib in my bedroom. But all three guest bedrooms will be full with the Lotts and my Aunt Jill and Uncle Dave, who were in Texas (El Paso) and decided to drop by. There are some stresses to living in a full house, and there will be some things that are quite improved upon by moving into my own apartment. But I do like being around people, so suddenly being in an apartment where I am the only resident may have a bit of loneliness with is as well. Oh well. I'll just have to keep in mind how nice it is to get to have my stuff everywhere.

Yesterday I went to the wedding of two of my high school friends, Daniel and Eloisa. In fact, I have known Daniel since sixth grade and Eloisa since ninth grade. I've been seeing people I know get married for quite some time now, starting with Simon and Katrina and 2001 and gradually getting closer and closer to me in age. But this is the first wedding of people who are actually my peers- they have been my classmates for years now. How strange.

Today was a fun day. After church Justin and I went to a steak & sushi restaraunt, where I rose to the challenge of eating a large blob of wasabi in exchange for a nice date in the near future. After that we went on a brief hunt for some wine glasses I wanted to get my parents and found some similar to the ones we were looking for. Then we came back to our house (Saugier parents' house) and rested/read comics before enjoying a very delicious lunch in the company of our house guests plus Luke and his kiddos (sadly Amber was unable to join us). After that we went to the pool and splashed around for a couple of hours, then came back home and had some enjoyable chat with the parents. Overall a very nice Sunday.

Sno Cones!

Yesterday our church had an open house with free food after church. I sat with Titus, who was eating a sno cone, and he told me all about it: "Aunt Hannah, I'm eating a sno cone. It's blue. You should have a sno cone." I've never really liked sno cones, but Titus seemed so excited about it that I told him I might have one after lunch. "Do you want to have a sno cone?" he asked again, so I told him, "Let me finish my lunch first and then I'll have one," to which he replied, "I'll go ask for a sno cone for you." So he did. He brought me a pink one. After eating a couple of bites I passed it on to Joy.

A bit later, Little Hannah, who was also at our table, fell out of her chair, bonked her head, and became very upset. As she was crying, Titus said to me, "we should get Little Hannah a sno cone." Then Kristen got up to take Hannah to a different room to calm down and Titus shouted to her, "Kristen! Get Hannah a sno cone!!!" Cute. I like the idea that a sno cone can fix anything.

The food at the open house was good- I always like things like that where everyone brings a side dish or chips or dessert. Of course my favorite is always the dessert, and I always have trouble limiting my dessert consumption. Yesterday I had a chocolate cupcake with lots of frosting, a rich chocolate brownie, and a peanut butter- chocolate cookie. YUM. Something that I was surprised to see as a side dish was a ham & melon plate. It reminded me of the type of food that was all over the place in Spain! I took a picture to show Mari.

Yesterday evening we had Fathers' Day dinner at Luke and Amber's house. Amber prepared some salmon and side dishes. I marinated some flat iron steak and made dessert. It all turned out very well! The steak was tender and delicious. The salmon was good and flavorful. The green beans and tomatoes that Amber had prepared were a nice complement. The dessert that I made was inspired by something I saw in the dessert case at Kroger. It was called a fruit tart, and appeared to be some sort of pie crust with lots of delicous-looking fruit piled on top, with something unidentifiable between the fruit and the crust. Mama suggested that I make the cheese pie that Daddy really likes and pile the fruit on top of that. I had a bit of trouble finding the recipe, and when I did I realized that I did not have graham cracker crumbs for the crust so I had to improvise. Then it didn't set up quite like I wanted it to so the fruit sunk in a little bit. But it still tasted good and I think everyone enjoyed it. I was quite pleased with it's final appearance with all the fruit on top, so I took a picture. Now if I want to do it again I'll know what fruit I used.

VBS and time with the parents

This week I've been helping with Vacation Bible School at Cornerstone, mostly with the crafts. I've decided that little kids are hilarious. The first day I helped, the preschool and kindergarten kids colored a paper bush and shepherd which they glued to cups for a "lost sheep" game. Since not much of my help was needed for this project, I just walked around and gave encouragement. One little boy's bush was very neatly colored and looked better than most 5-year olds' coloring, so I said, "Hey, that's a really nice bush!" to which the boy said, "you're just saying that." I was caught by surprise; "what did you say?" The kid looked a bit sheepish and said, "Oh... nevermind"

I think that maybe I should run a day-care or summer camp or something like that. I feel bad for kids whose parents have to work and can't give them as much time and attention as I got growing up. Think of all the fun things you could do with a bunch of kids! You could practically make an army!

I noticed a lot of funny signs in Europe. I tried to take pictures of most of them, which I will now post.

Reserved for people in casts, pregnant women, and elderly men. Good thing it's illustrated.

For a disco party, try to find this group.

Update: back from Europe

Apparently we did not do any blogging in Europe like we had planned. Now that I'm back, it seems daunting to try to describe the entire trip at once. So I will hit some highlights, maybe post a few pictures, and add more amusing stories or anecdotes as I feel necessary.



The day before leaving Houston, I signed an apartment lease. I am pleased with it- it's a one-bedroom, 640 sq. ft. apt with a balcony facing the pool, and my lease will start June 26. I am looking forward to moving in, setting up my own place, and being able to entertain guests! So, if you know me well enough to be reading my blog, please feel free to come visit me at my apartment once I am in and we can have tea and go swimming!



Our trip to Europe was fun! Unfortunately, we had several very crappy things happen, but hopefully that will leave us with memories of how Mari and I had to stick together to conquer the crappiness. The low-lights of our trip were when Mari's wallet and Aggie Ring got stolen in Morocco, when Mari got sick in a hostel in London, when a bird pooped on Mari's head in Gibraltar, and when we almost missed our connecting flight back from Frankfurt to Houston. Hopefully we will eventually be able to laugh at all those things.




In the meantime, here are some fun things we got to do in Europe:



See Toledo: We took a day-trip from Madrid to the city of Toledo, which was beautiful. I can't remember how old it is, but it was originally a Moorish city and was later taken over by Spanish Catholics. There were remnants of Moorish architecture, including a very old city wall. It was cool to see how the newer city had just been built into the ancient wall, and there were people who lived and worked around this ancient, historical wall everyday. Neat! We also loved the Cathedral in Toledo- supposedly it is one of the biggest in Spain, and it was very impressive. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures inside, but here is a picture of the outside, from which you cannot see how awesome it is.

Touch the Mediterranean: We went to Tarifa, which is supposedly the southernmost city of Europe (but what about the Canary Islands? I guess they mean Europe proper). Tarifa is a beachy town, and the Mediterranean beaches were beautiful. Mari and I discussed where exactly the Mediterranean begins and the Atlantic ends, and I concluded that it's probably not clearly defined, since they're touching... there are probably just areas that are clearly one or the other, but some fuzziness in between. Shortly after this Hannah wisdom, we walked out onto a rocky pier and saw a sign on one side that said "Mar Mediterreano" (Mediterranean Sea) and "Oceano Atlantico" (Atlantic Ocean) on the other. Apparently I was wrong.

Explore Windsor Castle: This was awesome!!! Apparently they fly the UK flag (the "Union Jack") from the tower most of the time, but when the Queen is in residence they fly the Royal Standard. Guess which one was up when we went? That's right- the Royal Standard! But we didn't get to actually see her... sad. We would have found tea with the Queen absolutely delightful! Windsor not only looked like a real authentic castle- it IS a real authentic castle. It is the oldest continually inhabited royal residence in Europe, I think. William the Conqueror first built a wooden fortress there in the 1000s, but then they built a stone one there in the next century, and that is the beginning of the actual castle that is still there today! I'm a little embarassed to say that Mari and I particularly enjoyed the gift shot- how touristy. But what we liked about the gift shop was that the stuff seemed nice, and not cheap and tacky like most tourist shops... it felt like it was actually stuff the Queen would use. And I'm sure it was. I'll bet when Queen Elizabeth needs a new tea cup, she runs down to the shop and buys the exact same teal teacup-and-saucer (with a little picture of Windsor Castle on it!) set that Mari and I got for half-price!


We have lots of other fun stories, but, like I said, it's hard to think of all of them in one sitting, and I'm sure no one wants to devote a three-hour chunk of their day to reading my blog. So I'll just post a few more photos.

Thoughts on life

Graduation report: the ceremony itself was quite as expected- long and boring. I was one of the last people to graduate. Beforehand my family had planned a Hannah-recognition ceremony, which was very thoughtful and special. I was very surprised.

Here's something that I was thinking about lately: I have read in history books and other such literature about people in the 17th/18th centuries that they attributed everything to divine providence because they didn't understand how science worked. For example, people believed they were having a baby because God gave them a baby, or that someone was sick because God made them sick, or that weather patterns and geological formations were what they were because that was what God made. According to these books, this was because they did not know the scientific explanations for these things. The implied (though not explicitly stated) comparison is that we today, with our vast knowledge, know better and can explain everything with science. My opinion is that the two are not at all mutually exclusive. Let's look at the example of weather, say, having nice weather on a day when you have to work outside a lot. Yes, we know that weather is caused by a lot of things like wind patterns and lots of other things that I don't fully understand but meteorologists can explain to us. But does that mean that God had nothing to do with it? May it never be! Clearly it is not completely deterministic- otherwise weathermen would be able to perfectly predict the weather for all time. There is some uncertainty with everything. We might say that we KNOW that given the existing weather conditions, there is a certain probability that it will be nice tomorrow, and another probability that it will be hot, and another probability that it will be rainy. So what determines which of those options it is? The scientific explanation leaves a hole there.

Even in chemistry/physics, in the study of electrons, the typical model that says there are such-and-such number of electrons in this shell, so-and-so many here, and so forth, those are probabalistic- it's just a probability that a certain electron will be in a certain place. The placement of these tiny electrons isn't fully predictable! So it doesn't make sense to say something like, "that person recovered from that illness because his immune system was able to kill the disease cells and it worked in such-and-such fasion... [lots of details]," because there is never perfect uniformity in these results. Yes, we can understand more of the specifics of how things physically happen, but there is still no certainty. What makes one person recover and another get worse under the same circumstances, other than God's plan?

I don't like when history books take on this "we know everything now" attitude.

Ceremonial End-of-School Stuff

One more day until I graduate! I've been surprisingly busy these past few days. I thought that after finals were done, I would have several days of doing nothing but eating, sleeping, hanging out with Justin and other fun people, and maybe watching TV or something. Apparently I was underestimating how much time it takes to pack. Moving out is not fun.

My moving out has been punctuated with some less tedious events. Last night Mama and Daddy came up and joined Justin and me for an Honors Awards Ceremony/Reception. I got a gold "stole" that I get to wear at graduation, which will make me easier to see from the audience! Today Justin and I went to a Math Dept reception for graduates, where I got a purple & gold cord for being in Pi Mu Epsilon (math honor society), which I will wear to graduation. Yay! More bling (or "regalia").

Dr. Stecher, my math advisor and one of my favorite professors, was there and asked if he would ever be able to meet my family. I told him they were sad that they couldn't make it today, but would be at graduation tomorrow, but apparently he will not be. He is a very nice man and has been very helpful and encouraging over the past four years. I had Justin take a picture of me with Dr. Stecher.

After this reception Justin and I had to walk back across campus to do some other stuff. It is quite hot today, and we saw a sad little squirrel who appeared to be suffering from the heat. He was splayed flat on his stumoch, panting heavily. It was so cute I had to take a little video. Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera out and turned on, he was about ready to get up, but I did get a little bit of panting-squirrel footage.

I am very excited about getting to see everybody tomorrow! Hooray for fam time!

Turn Right at the Goats

Today I had a dentist appointment. Last time I went the found three cavities, so today I had to get them filled. As I sat in the dentist chair with two strangers' faces hovering above me and four white rubber gloves, a cotton roll, a suction tube thingy, some stuff that tasted nasty, and an uncomfortable metal thing in my mouth, I thought, "this is not a pleasent experience." I have never really enjoyed going to the dentist. When I was little, the grossness of the tooth polish and fluoride rinse was at least balanced a little bit by the fact that I got something cool- a sticker, or toothbrush, or pencil-topper - at the end. Last time I went to the dentist I did get a cool plastic zipper pouch with a toothbrush, trial-size toothpaste, and floss inside. But this time all I left with was a numb mouth! Boo! I'm never going there again. [wink wink]

After my dentist appointment I drove up to College Station. As I got to the stop light on 359 at the goats, I thought, "this is the last time I will make this drive as a Texas A&M student." How I will miss seeing those cute little goats, sometimes sitting contentedly inside those concrete cylinders, reminding me of the beautiful simplicity of college life. Well, not really. I just felt like I should try to make the goats sound more meaningful.

Anywho, here are some things I will miss about A&M:

• Football games (although I'll still come to some next year with Justin)


• Being able to take naps in the middle of the day


• Access to huge library with lots of cool books- regular libraries don't have as many math books.


• Being within 10 minutes of everything, by bike.


• Having a schedule that allows me to eat whenever I want to, and sit outside during the nicest parts of the day.


• Changing my schedule every semester.


• Formals with Justin


• Professors telling me I'm awesome


• Getting to still be a kid


• Turning right (or left, if I'm coming home) at the goats


• Summer Break/ Christmas Break/ Spring Break


• Math

Here are some things I will NOT miss about A&M:

• Terrible parking


• The wierd smell in Blocker


• Difficult homework


• Being poor


• Construction on Highway 6 AND Texas Avenue (I could write a whole other blog post about this... maybe I will next time I'm bored)


• Grading papers


• Feeling like a little kid


• Having to put "High School Diploma" as my highest level of education completed when filling out surveys

Graduation Activities

Last night I had my graduation party. Overall it was fun. It started out with mostly corps guys, but eventually some friends that I knew from math showed up. That was a pretty good mix for a while, but as people started to leave, the remaining guests divided themselves into two distinct groups: corps guys and "nerds." It is also worth noting that the people that stayed the longest were those in both groups whom I don't know as well. In fact, the remaining "nerds" included one guy I know, one guy I've met about 3 times, one guy I have seen but never really met, and a guy I've never seen or met. The remaining corps guys included a really drunk guy and some of his friends that I've only met a couple of times. Then one of the corps guys said something vaguely insulting to one of the nerds and they started arguing and everyone got mad and it was very awkward. Then they left. At the time I felt like this made my whole party a disaster, but Justin assured me that everyone else said they had a good time, and most of the people that I'm actually friends with had already left by the time it got awkward.

I have several reception-type events as graduation approaches:
Thursday, May 8
5:30 p.m. Something with the Association of Former Students where there's supposed to be free food and I can get a free bumper sticker.
6:00 p.m. Honors reception at the Hilton. I expect Justin, Mama and Daddy to accompany me.

Friday, May 9
1:00 p.m. ? Reception for math graduates. I hope there's food. I expect Justin to accompany me, but I don't know if I've told him about it yet.

Saturday, May 10
11:30 a.m. Graduation lunch with the fam! We decided that this would work better than dinner after the ceremony. I expect the whole family to be there.
2:00 p.m. Graduation ceremony. What cool thing should I do to my hat to make it visible from the audience?
6:00 p.m. I'm going to watch Justin's FINAL final review!

Then I move the rest of my stuff back to Katy!

...Everyone else is doing it.

Apparently I'm the only one in my family who doesn't have a blog. So I am starting one at Mari's suggestion so that she and Mama and maybe Amber and Katrina can read up on what's going on with me without the hassle of calling or emailing. This blog will not be as well-written as Mari's, and for that I apologize, especially if you feel morally obligated to read mine as often as you read Mari's, lest you feel like a bad mother/sister-in-law/brother (do they even read blogs?).

The most interesting thing in my life right now (besides the upcoming Great Sister Trip of '08, of course!!!) is that I am graduating from Texas A&M University in 12 days and then embarking on a new chapter of my life. I will be working for Pariveda Solutions, a small IT consulting firm, in Houston. I'll still be coming up to College Station quite a bit next year because Justing will still be here and I'm sure we'll want to go to football games together.

I'm still trying to decide where to live in Houston, and thanks to the internet, I can spend/waste hours every day searching for the perfect one-bedroom apartment (mezannine?) within my price range. I currently also enjoy spending time planning my future apartment's decor. I'm trying to build a theme around a big wire banana leaf I got on sale several weeks ago; I'm thinking I'll go with blacks, browns and greens/leafies for a jungly look.

This past weekend I went to the Ross Volunteer Ball with Justin. It was fun, especially when considered with the fact that Justin had a countable number of corps events left! In fact, I think Final Review might be his last corps event ever!

15 more days until Mari and I leave for the Great Sister Trip of '08! We'll fly out of Houston to Frankfurt, then from Frankfurt to Madrid. We will then spend 2 weeks running around various parts of Spain; Mari planned that part. Then we will travel to England, where we will spend a day in Oxford exploring the midevial architecture and historical atmosphere, a day in Bath enjoying the setting of many Jane Austen novels, and a day in Salisbury/Stonehenge, where we will marvel at Stonehenge, of course. I am very excited and will hopefully be able to update this blog a few times while there with exciting travel tales. In fact, that was the main motivation for starting this blog.