Well, well, well.

Look who has been far too studious to update her blog.

How many times have I used the excuse of being “too studious” for not blogging regularly?  Far too many, is my guess.

 

So, long story short, this semester is almost over. 16 days til my last final and I fly home, to be exact.

It has been a very, very busy semester.  I only took 14 hours, but the design classes have such a heavy workload that I spend the better part of my time doing homework, which has paid off, as currently I am still rocking a 4.0 gpa.

In my “spare” time, I am planning social events for my club, or working at my weekend job at Lowe’s.

 

Overall, it has been an incredibly full, but very rewarding, semester.

I will try to get all of my projects from this semester on the computer so I can upload them here.

And now, I have to go to mandatory hall meeting in my dorm.

Adios for now.

Back at College.

But I’m tired. More later.

xo

Finals Week.

It begins on Monday.

Final exams.

This semester I seriously lucked out.

I have one “final” on Monday (my teacher isn’t giving us an exam, we are just meeting to have breakfast/say goodbye).  I have two finals on Tuesday, one half cumulative (Wellness, shouldn’t be too hard), and one that isn’t at all (Accounting!! Thank you GOD!).  Wednesday, I have one final, which is cumulative, Acts of the Apostles, but I’m not too worried about it.  Thursday is my last day of finals, and I technically have 2, but for my 2D design class, my teacher just gave us a take-home self-critique packet for our final project which is due on the day of the final, but I already turned mine in so I don’t have to go!  I also have my biology “final” which is really just a test over the last 3 weeks’ material, so that is very good news.  I was pretty positive I was going to fail that class, and I am most likely going to come out of it with an A.

Then on Friday, I start the journey home!!

I’m so very, very ready to be home.

A Day Late.

I guess this is a day later than I semi-promised to post about the lightning strike.

But let me give a little back story.

Saturday was my club’s spring formal, and we drove out to Little Rock to take a ride on the Arkansas Queen, an old-fashioned river ferry type boat.  It was very fun.  I love to get all dressed up.  Here are some photos from the evening, pre-struck by lightning.

All in all, it was a very fun night.  It was a good end to a really crazy/depressing/stressful/emotional week/period of time.

Then we got struck by lightning.

So here is the story you’ve all been waiting maybe 2 days to hear.

We start heading back to school after the formal and it starts to downpour.  The sky also starts to display a constant light show, hidden behind a heavy cloud covering.  Being that we have never been struck by lightning, and honestly the idea of being struck by lightning was probably one of the farthest things from my realm of possibility, we wished out loud that we would be able to see a bolt of lightning break through the clouds.

Not 5 minutes later, our wish was granted.

In the blink of an eye, before we even know what is happening a blinding light bursts on the front of my car and a deafening clap surrounds us, the car shakes and wobbles for a moment, and suddenly we feel a burning, buzzing, electrical current pulsing through out veins, muscles, and bones.  It felt as though it was coursing all through us.  We both let out some confused, frightened exclamations and then both agree that what had just happened was that we had been struck by lightning!  So confused and filled with shock and disbelief, the only thing we can do is dissolve into a fit of laughter and screaming.  The, once we gathered enough composure to put some words together, we both thanked God for his provisions for us in that situation.  All the little factors that could have been different are what saved us, and for that we had to be totally filled with gratitude.

It was just such a thrilling, scary, exciting experience.  And apparently, word is already spreading around campus.  We told this guy in one of our classes about it today and he said “That was you two??  I heard about that!!”  He couldn’t remember who told him, but he had heard that some girls got struck by lightning in their car on the way back to school.  It felt cool to know that.

So, with that being said, a little update on my studious endeavors.

I am 12 class periods, 4 finals, 1 final project, and 10 days from leaving school and going home.  I still have a 4.0 and I think  I will be able to carry that through the end.  Fingers crossed.

See you all soon.

The Chances of Being Struck by Lightning…

…I don’t actually know the statistics, but whatever they are, I am now one of them.
Rhiannon and I got struck by lightning while driving on the way home from our formal tonight.
I’m really tired now (it happened a few hours ago) so I will post more about it tomorrow.

My plans for the weekend…

…No pun intended!  Actually, I totally intended that to be punny.  Because these are my “plans” for the weekend.

The floor plans and elevations that I have been hand drafting for the last 11 weeks!

Just a tiny bit of back story:  In my architectural drafting class, we were lucky enough to have a real client to design and draft a home for!  The client is Habitat for Humanity, International.  They needed us to design a home for a single mother and her three children, who before being selected for home assistance, were all crammed into a one-bedroom apartment.  So, we all had to design a new 3 bedroom home for them, at a maximum of 1,070 sf.  It is amazing what you can do with what seems like so little space!  Habitat is such an amazing organization, and I have learned so much about them through this project.  Before I started, I just kind of thought they gave houses to poor people.  The truth is that the families that are selected have to show the ability to make mortgage payments, they have to pay a down payment, they of course have to pay the mortgage, and also have to put in 500 sweat equity hours on the building of the home.  I think it is a wonderful program that assists deserving families who would not otherwise have an opportunity to own a house become homeowners.  For more information, and for ways you can help HFH in your community, click here.

This post is dedicated to Osanna, because apparently gmail didn’t want me to e-mail these pictures to her.

Here is the plain old floor plan.  When it is traced for the final presentation, it will have all the dimensioning, labels, and electrical and lighting plan on it as well..  It’s going to be very packed.  This was before I labeled it, so from the top left corner going clockwise we have the master bedroom (for the mother), the master bath above with the guest bath below, utility closet with HVAC, water heater, washer and dryer.  Next is the kitchen, it has a door leading out to the backyard, and the cabinets above the counters are ceiling mounted, and so there is an opening from the kitchen to the dining room (the room right after the kitchen) as well as to the living room, right below the kitchen/dining on the floor plan.  Continuing back down the house we have the little boy’s room, and the girls’ room.

This is the electrical and lighting plan.  It’s the rough first draft, so there are lots of sloppy notes and symbols, but it’s still kind of cool.

This is the front elevation of the house.  It faces the west.

And the north elevation…

East elevation (back of the house, facing the backyard)

And the south elevation.  This is the side of the house that the driveway comes up to, so I wanted to have a side door there for bringing in groceries, etc.

Here some elevations of the kitchen…The weird looking drawing on the far left is of the closed folding doors enclosing the HVAC, washer, dryer, etc…

So that’s most of what I have so far, and I will be completely done in 5 weeks!!  So excited for the summer 🙂

Big, Very College-y, News.

I was elected social director of my club for next year!!!  We had voting tonight, and I won! I am SO excited!

My basic responsibilities are planning all the social events/activities/parties/functions for our club, like our winter formal, christmas function, and any other random functions that you want to have 🙂  I will say it again, I am so excited and honored to have been voted in!  Not to mention, one of my best friends in the club was voted to be my co-director, and my other 2 besties got voted in as the athletic directors!  There will possibly be some awesome functions coming up…It’s going to be a wonderful year!

Being in College Means…

…Studying for your wellness test while flossing your teeth.

Aaand rinsing with mouthwash while blogging.

Yep. That is happening.

It’s all about multi-tasking and time management, right?

Back in the Saddle Again

I know it has been quite a long time since I have posted anything on here, and the only excuse I have to give is being busy.  Boring, I know, but I have been hard at work maintaining my 4.0, which is still intact as of midterm grades, which were posted last week.

This last week was spring break, and I spent it in Florida with my grandparents.  I would say it was perfect, but I got a really nasty cold/flu thing that knocked me out for the majority of the week, making being alive not-so-pleasant.  I was still able to enjoy the time I spent with them, though.  I cherish every moment.  I spent a lot of time in the sun, and got a small semblance of a tan to show for it, but for a girl with largely northern-European descent, I can live with that.

As for school…I am not quite ready to get back into the swing of things yet.  I just got back last night, and I still have something going on in my sinuses that is making me feel dizzy and off-balance…So motivation has been fleeting today.  Honestly, I am just really ready to be home.  I am going to miss a lot of stuff this semester…My best friend’s birthday, Easter, my birthday, my brother’s birthday, mother’s day….That’s a lot of stuff to miss in an 8 week time period.  I am just feeling really homesick.  I think being physically sick does nothing to ease that pain.

Regardless of all else, I will press on, and finish this semester strong.  I can’t promise a 4.0, because this biology class seriously kicks my butt, but I am going to try my hardest.  It’s hard to remember all the details about cellular respiration.

8 weeks and definitely counting.

Didn’t See That One Coming…

So, never in my wildest dreams when I decided to go to school in Arkansas did I ever imagine having a snow day.  Then, I got TWO SNOW DAYS IN A ROW!!!  I realize that I don’t actually post much about “school” itself, but that’s because most of it is pretty boring…I mean, do you really want to read a blog that has posts about stuff like a chemical bond that results from sharing electrons between two elements with very similar electro-negativity?  Well, that would be a non-polar covalent.  And if you want to read about that, go find a chemistry blog somewhere.

Otherwise, stay here and look at pictures from my snow days!!  (I think that would be more enjoyable)

 

 

Pretty much the best interruption to a school week ever.  Two days off, one day on, another two days off.

I like it.