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.